Grown

Two years ago Tommy looked like this. He was a little glow-wormy and he only wore blankets and hats.

And he was only as long has HALF of Josh's torso.

Today he wears jeans and shoes with laces and when he runs up to me to give me a hug he's as long as my leg. My whole leg.

In the beginning I was sure that he'd never grow because I couldn't feed him. But here it is 2 years later and I can't remember him ever being so small. Obviously he did grow.

Here's my theory - he grew fast, but not so fast I could see it. There are a few specific moments when I remember him being noticeably bigger/stronger/capable-er than he was 5 minutes earlier.

But for the most part things just sortof worked themselves out in the night when I wasn't looking (but definitely was praying).

And now he's an enormous, giant, toddler-boy who is kind (sometimes) and smart (almost always) and important (every single day).

I couldn't possibly be more glad that he is mine.

Thoughts on Little John's Arrival

I think that waking up 10 times a night to waddle to the bathroom tends to make you a bit loopy.

That's my excuse for the following line of reasoning from 3:37am.

Me: "Ugh...I have to pee again."
Self: "It's not possible. I just peed. I've only been asleep for 8 minutes. Wait...what's the difference between 28 and 37? Why is math so hard? I'm glad God invented calculators. If I go back to school I wonder what math I'd have to take. I haven't taken Math since I was a Jr. in High School. I'd probably fail. I thought I was good at Math, I wonder what else I'm not good at....."
Me: "Yep. Definitely have to pee."
Self: "Maybe I don't have to pee. Maybe my water is about to break. That's the same as peeing your pants right? So it probably feels the same right before it happens, right?"
Me: "Still have to pee."
Self: "If I have the baby this week we don't have Plan A available to watch Tommy until a grandma gets here. Plus Josh has tests today and tomorrow and clinic all day Friday. I don't wanna be alone in the hospital. Cue the tears of unreasonable emotion."
Me: "PEEEEEE!!!!!!" (in Tommy's voice)
Self: "Fine. I'll pee."

I'm a little unsure of how this delivery is going to go. With Tommy I had no idea what to expect. Which worked out fine because my water broke and that was a clear sign we had to go to the hospital today. According to my mother. I thought I could wait until my appointment the next afternoon with Dr. Man. That would've been bad.


This time I hope my water breaks again. And I hope it happens before Little John's due date because I'm pretty sure I'll be a miserable human being long before November 3rd. I have no good reason to think that I won't have to do the whole "time your contractions and wait for them to make you wish you were dead THEN go to the hospital" thing.

While Dr. Man seems confident I won't go past my due date, I'm not so sure. And I almost hope Little John doesn't come until at least the 5th because at that point Josh will be finished with his clinics for school and will be gone one less day each week. Plus then I'll get to go to the Halloween Party and take Tommy trick-or-treating which I fully expect to be the most adorable thing he's ever done.

Feeling Hopeful

For some reason today has been better than it should have been. You know that feeling when you look back over your day and things just went wrong and you did nothing fun or productive or right, but for some reason instead of feeling defeated and tired and ornery you feel like you had a good day anyway? But there's no apparent reason for it?

That was today. Josh worked all day, I took Tommy to my RS meeting this morning (NOT acceptable behavior, but I didn't know what else to do.) where he colored on his hands and whined and distracted all of us from being as productive as we should have been. I've been sick and tired and grouchy and sick a couple more times for what feels like a long time and it all "came up" during church. The dishes didn't do themselves. The child didn't feed himself. The work didn't get done. AND I didn't sleep in. Plus my house is a disaster zone and my "relax and listen to calming music" time seems to have vanished.

But you wanna know the good news?

• My pregnancy partner (she is due the same day as me) is going to have her c-section in 3 weeks instead of 1. Somehow this means to me that my baby won't come tomorrow and I can calm. freaking. down. 
• The people in my RS meeting say nice things about my child even though he's covered in ink and his mother is clearly a disaster.
• The lessons and talks in church were great.
• I had sweet sweet conversations and goals met with my hubby.
• We went for a nice evening drive as a family. Nobody had a meltdown. Not even me!
• Tommy snuggled into me before rolling onto his back for his hands-behind-the-head-ankles-crossed bedtime story position. 
• We ate "garden dinner" together after church. There are few things I love more than dinner which is really just made up of garden food courtesy of someone who loves me. (Hi mom!)

I suppose I do know the reasons it was a good day instead of a rotten one after all.....

Table Manners

We love Tommy and we want him to be kind and smart and important.

We want him to know all of the important things.

We realize we're responsible for teaching him everything. Which is at best overwhelming and at worst paralyzing. Because (newsflash!) we don't actually know everything. (Go ahead, make your surprised face.)

Plus the things that we do know we're not very good at teaching. Sometimes it doesn't stand out so much and I think we're getting away with it. (It = tricking people into thinking that we know what we're doing.) Other times my parents are over for dinner and Tommy runs around like a crazy person refusing to sit still and trying to take his clothes off while refusing to eat anything that isn't veggie dip.

And then we realize how miserably we're failing at teaching him things.

Fortunately they're my parents and they not only continue to love Tommy, but they still love us too.

If Tommy ever learns enough table manners to land himself a wife (or even a date), I'm going to have to remember that.

Welcome

At my parent's house my room was in the basement, which means my window was pretty easily accessed. A sneak through the rock garden and short drop into the window well gave you easy entrance to my bedroom. Which, as a teenager with parents who liked to go to sleep much earlier than I thought was a reasonable time for my friends to drop by, was awesome.

Somehow I adopted a welcome mat (like for a front porch) and put it under the window in my bedroom.
It was a joke.
Mostly.

Today I'm wishing I had a basement window I could offer as a more welcoming space than my actual front porch.

As far as I can tell there are no plans to pour the replacement sidewalk anytime before Christmas. The jackhammer guys came and did their job, but I've seen no sign of the "fix it/make it pretty" guys. Perhaps those guys are just quieter.

The good news is, Tommy will gladly play in the "rock pit" for hours at a time.
The bad news is it takes hours to get him past the front door every time we cross it.

On a completely unrelated note to everyone I've inconvenienced: Sorry I was late today (and yesterday, and tomorrow and the next day.....). I couldn't get my kid off the front porch because it is now the coolest place on the block.

They jackhammered my door open

Remember The HOA love-fest? Yeah....those were the good ol' days.

Actually it's not so much The HOA's fault, but clearly I'm going to whine to SOMEone about SOMEthing and therefore must blame The HOA.

They're replacing some my sidewalks because somehow somewhere someone deemed them imperfect and spray painted a bright orange X on my front porch.

Tommy is somehow napping through the jackhammering that is literally shaking the entire house. Which is fine, they gotta work sometime, but my front door won't stay closed and every few minutes it pops open due to the vibration. That's when the jackhammering starts in my brain.

Awesome.

In other news we inherited ceiling fans from our extraordinarily kind neighbors who have moved and like us more than the future occupants of their home. Removing the old light fixtures and replacing them with ceiling fans requires crawling into the attic, tracking insulation through the living room, and shedding a fine layer of sawdust over the entire house. Which is why my living room currently looks as much like a construction zone as my front porch.

Belly Flops

I remember the first time I tried to do a belly flop on the trampoline in my grandpa's backyard. I'd seen my siblings do it a thousand times and I was terrified - but I was determined to be cool like The Big Kids.

I landed on my hips before my chest and sortof wormed into a face-smack but when I bounced back up I was wildly proud of myself.

"I did it!!!" I shouted, but nobody was around because I don't believe in trying potentially embarrassing things in front of an audience.

Last night when I rolled over from one side to the other, Little John rose up and over my body making an actual flopping sound as he hit the mattress.

"I did it!!!" I thought silently to myself. Because at this point in the pregnancy rolling over in bed is just as big of an accomplishment as my first belly flop.

Our Deep Fried Saturday

Josh's mom works at the State Fair every year and as an employee she gets some free tickets. That rocks for those of us who don't believe in paying for things.

Tommy and I were stoked to go to the fair on Saturday morning and it happened to be the PERFECTLY overcast and cool day for wandering around livestock and people.

Tommy rode in the stroller happily for about 20 minutes, then wanted to "POOOOOSH!" it.

Perhaps the best part of being escorted to the fair by an employee (and Grandma) is that she already knew all of the coolest stuff for my kid to do. Since my entire agenda for the fair was "cows and my first funnel cake" I was glad she had other good ideas.

Tommy's cousin Cayson (who he doesn't see nearly often enough) came with grandma and the two of them would've played with these magnet things in the science center all day long if we hadn't distracted them with other things.

Like the floating balls which both boys thought were hilarious.

There was also this awesome (free) kid's play area where Tommy and Cayson (and mom and grandma) were thoroughly entertained for the better part of an hour.

When The Australian brought out the kookaburra and all the kangaroos to look at, Tommy gladly watched. Because he's already smart enough to know that Australia is cool.

After lunch we headed out for my priorities at the fair.

Cows.

Funnel Cake.

Listen kids. Cows still stink. Funnel cake does not. That's all I'm sayin'.

Fortunately for Tommy (and Little John - who didn't want Tommy to kick him anymore) Josh's baby brother Braden was there.

There are simply no words for how strong the bro-love is between these too. Braden loves being loved so much and Tommy simply can't get enough of the boy. But he's still a 16 year old boy.

Cami is ALWAYS there to get her own fill of The Love when Braden's attention is lost.

By the time we left we were appropriately exhausted and thoroughly satisfied.

It was the perfect day for The Fair.

A secret knock

I think we've established why I don't answer my front door. Right?

But sometimes (rarely) I'm really sorry about that:
Like when I don't answer my door and my VTers leave delicious cookies on the step and I don't even get to thank them properly or invite them in.
Or when it's my neighbor who just needs to borrow a key, but I didn't know it was her and I didn't answer and  now one of us has to make an extra trip CLEAR down the street to hand off the keys.
Or when it's the fedex guy, and he can't just leave the package and now I have to stay home tomorrow between the hours of 10 and 4 just in case he stops by since me driving to their office in the-middle-of-nowhere is as likely as me answering my door when I don't know who it is.

That's when I wish there was a secret "you want to answer this knock"-knock. Not the one that everybody (including the salesmen) know. (Did you just do that one in your head? Me too. But I don't know how to type it.) But a whole new secret one. Or perhaps a hidden doorbell that only nice people I love know about.

Or perhaps a security system that scans their fingerprint while they ring the bell and announces through my house who is here and what they want. "JOHN SMITH HERE WITH A CLIPBOARD AND A BROCHURE ABOUT  HOW YOU CAN SAVE UP TO THOUSANDS-asterisk OF DOLLARS BY SPENDING JUST $10 ON THIS SIMPLE COUPON BOOK WHICH WILL PUT HIM THROUGH COLLEGE AND PURIFY WATER IN AFGHANISTAN WHILE SUPPORTING ANY OF THESE 19  PRE-APPROVED CAUSES YOU BELIEVE IN AND BUYING YOU 12 MAGAZINE SUBSCRIPTIONS FOR THE NEXT 3 YEARS. PLUS HE'LL CLEAN YOUR WINDOWS AND YOUR CARPETS FOR FREE." my exceptionally intelligent computer house would say to me. And I'd click "ignore" (like on facebook) and all future knocks/rings would be silenced. Or "SISTER SMITH WITH A PLATE OF COOKIES AND A HANKERIN' FOR A GOOD CONVERSATION." the computer house would say in it's best southern accent because only in the South and in Utah do you eat what people bring on a paper plate and say "hankerin'".

If that existed it would've taken me only 4 and a half minutes to answer the door last night when Aundrea came instead of the full 10. And since it was 8pm and she hadn't been home from work yet, I bet she would've appreciated the extra 5.5 minutes.

Fortunately she knows that the secret "you want to answer this knock"-knock is:
1 ring of the doorbell
2 phone calls (both unanswered) on not-my-cell-phone
1 ring of the doorbell
1 knock

If you're willing to go to all that trouble, you'll likely get 1 embarrassed bath-robe-ed Amy with drippy neck-hair answering the door after dark while trying to explain that it really does take 4 and a half minutes to get out of the tub and I didn't think I wanted to answer until the phone rang the first time anyway so I'm so sorry you've been standing on my dragon-fly infested porch for the past 10 minutes waiting to tell me that you love me and I'll likely survive the rest of this pregnancy.

Dear Aundrea, Thanks for stopping by. Let's invent a slightly-less-time-consuming secret knock sometime eh? Love, Amy

Quirks

I love my child so much.

So so much.

I love him because he sweet and handsome and lovely. I love him because he figures things out. I love him because he thinks my kisses fix everything.

But today I love him especially because of his quirks.

At mealtime he sits in his high chair and slowly eats his way through his meal. When he's "all done!" an hour after beginning he tells me so then moans "oh-no!" a phrase he stole from Stella who stole it from her mom "a mess!!" a phrase he stole from yours truly and guesses that next we'll "osh? osh?" so I clear his tray and get a washcloth.

When he sees me heading toward him with a washcloth he sticks his feet straight out in front of him and demands that I start by washing his (squeaky clean) toes. Always.


There are a bunch of small routines we have, all of which I love. But the ones which don't make sense and are quite simply quirky are my favorite of all.

Po-Tant

I know you've been dying to hear Tommy tell you how important he is ever since this post. Kindly ignore the laundry on the back of the couch and the fact that his mother hasn't clothed him by 10am.

Whining

Up until last week I was feeling pretty OK. Pregnant, tired, huge, and all that comes with it. But OK anyway.

I think that was mostly because at night I was sleeping. I'd wake up in the middle of the night, but I'd also go back to sleep. I'd wake up in the morning feeling refreshed and recharged and the first few hours of the day were always wildly productive.

But something happened this week. I'm not sure what it was, but suddenly I am drained.

I wake up feeling every bit as exhausted and achy as I felt when I went to sleep.

I was whining to Josh about not feeling good. And hurting. And being tired. And feeling the skin on my feet stretch. And being generally uncomfortable.

"Plus I keep getting these random cramps. I thought pregnancy made you immune from PMS." I told him.

I happened to be walking from the couch to the kitchen at the time and a random cramp hit forcing me to double over leaning against the chair crying until the puking kicked in.

"Um...I think that when you're pregnant cramps are actually called contractions....." he said in his least confident and most mousey voice. "That never happened with Thomas, did it?"

No. No it didn't. In fact, I might even say that I never felt bad contractions through his whole birth. Even when the epidural didn't work on one side and I could feel the contractions they weren't that bad.

Tomorrow Dr. Man and I will have a nice long chat about just how strongly you can be medicated while you're pregnant. Between the heartburn medication and the anti-nausea medication and some kind of pain medication that I hope he'll give me I have a feeling we'll be approaching that limit.

Suddenly this pregnancy is really hard.
I can't sit or stand comfortably.
I'm tired. Always.
I'm swollen all over and my nose is at least 3 times the size it was.
I haven't done my hair since the time before we last went camping.
I want to nap. Always.
The love sac sucks me in and while I can usually get comfortable there, getting out is quite the spectacle.
I don't sleep at night because I toss and turn and roll and push Josh around and try to stand up and lean over the garbage can and pee and take the covers off and put the covers on and shake the sleep out of my arms and......and......and.....
I can't bend over and lift things, which sucks because I have a two-year-old who is significantly shorter than I am.
Plus when Tommy uses my belly as a step stool to reach the top of my head, my eyes water.

Really it has been a good pregnancy, and really it will continue to be. I'm not hospitalized or on bed rest. I'm not paralyzed or unable to function (depending on your definition of functioning). The baby is fine and I'm fine and I'm happy to be pregnant and I have exactly zero room to complain.

But somehow I think I'll keep complaining anyway.

Poor Tommy

A few weeks ago, I started writing my "list of crap I need Josh to do before the baby comes" on the fridge. Josh laughed at me because he thinks it's funny when textbooks are accurate.

Apparently Josh believes that
"get the bottles, clothes, blankets, carseat, toys, swing, bath, and all other baby-looking business out of the attic" and
"throw out all of Tommy's toys because they're gross and large" and
"replace the kitchen drawers because it's impossible to get ALL of the crumbs out of the corners"
are all categorized as "some unique and seemingly irrational behaviors in pregnant women...." or "an uncontrollable urge to clean one's house." Otherwise known as nesting.

Even though he laughed at me, he pulled all of the baby stuff down from the attic and we suddenly remembered how small our living room really is.

Tommy immediately fell in love with the swing. Which is weird since back when it was his, his usual reaction was something like this:

But now he pushes and pushes and pushes the baby swing. Then he asks if he can have "hep [getting] up-igh pwease?" and his tiny little heart breaks in two while I try to explain that he's too big and that it's for Little John and that not everything in the whole wide world is just for him anymore.

Seriously. I actually saw his tiny little heart break.

And my ginormous (and probably swollen since everything else on my body is swollen) heart broke too.

Just wait till he sees the little one sleeping in his bed (which has the mattress raised back up high where it belongs but looks so unnatural) wearing his clothes, drinking from his bottle and laying on his mom's lap.

It's not gonna be pretty.

Saturday Is A Special Day?

There's a song the kids in our church sing about Saturday.

Saturday is a special day
It's the day we get ready for Sunday......


I'm curious. Regardless of "ready for Sunday" and whether or not that is your focus on Saturday, is it a special day?

Because at my house Saturday is the day that the alarm goes off, Josh gets up and goes to work, then school, then work again and comes home whenever he can.

Exactly like every other day of the week.

Only on Saturday I try to avoid going places (the store, the library, the zoo) because my poor anti-social self can't handle the crowds.

I suppose the thing that makes Saturday special to us is that we don't leave, we don't do anything productive and we're eating leftover cold pizza at 10:30am. At 10:30 is leftover cold pizza breakfast or lunch? I think the fact that I don't know is what I love so much about it. Somehow it not being defined means the calories don't count.


We're only a couple of weeks into this semester and already I can't tell what day it is and I'm not entirely sure it matters anyway.

That might be why I love Sunday so much. It starts early, I'm gone for a lot of the day, Josh still works, we're running from early in the morning until bedtime. Busy or not, at least it's different.

What about you? What do you do on Saturday (or Sunday) at your house?

32 Weeks: A Rerun

2 years ago I wrote this post about being 32 weeks along.

It is 2 years later, I am again 32 weeks along and I am just starting to realize how smart I was back then.

It's all still true.

So I'm just copying and pasting my prior genius. Besides, I'm wearing the same clothes and Josh says I look the same size.

Have a nice flashback.

*************************************************************

I think I'm in the awkward teenage phase of this pregnancy.

The acne, the sleeping till noon, the immaturity (I actually stuck my tongue out and put my fingers up to the sides of my head and said "nah nah nah nah nah naaahhhh" at Josh yesterday. And I meant every word of it.) and raging hormones are all but kicking my butt.

I consider food found at a gas station appropriate for dinner. My body is growing in very strange and uncomfortable ways. I need a new wardrobe once a month. The newness of "oh my gosh I'm pregnant" has totally worn off (I realized late last night that it seemed totally normal to waddle to the bathroom 5 times within the first half hour of being home. I don't know how much more adjusted I can get....) but the "holy crap! what am I gonna do with my life when I graduate? (have this baby)" hasn't quite settled in yet. I'm in that weird in-between zone.

Really the only differences between me now and me 10 years ago (in Jr. High) is that I now have a drivers license, bills, and a *shriek squeal* super-cute husband! Oh yeah, and I'm not looking forward to the stake dance this Saturday. That's different too.

This week Baby Egbert has:

• Full grown fingernails AND toenails (which will probably never be paintedsince he's a boy and everything).
• Maybe some hair. Or maybe some peach fuzz. Or maybe a balder than bald head. I'm really curious about the hair on this child. Do you think they'll ever invent an ultrasound that shows things like hair and eye color? That will be cool.
• Soft and smooth skin. I'm not sure who is more excited about this, me or Josh? Josh goes nuts for brand new babies. He loves to touch their skin, and their hair. I think he'll spend hours holding hands with Baby Thomas just so he can feel his skin.

Really from this point forward they know nothing about my baby. The updates are full of vague "facts about Baby" and always say " or maybe not....the development of every child is unique, even in the womb, so maybe your child is still working on getting rid of the tail, or maybe he's fully developed. Who knows really?".

However, the facts about how I'm feeling are something they are very confident about (and also wrong a lot of the time). For example they claim:

• I'm gaining a pound/week. I'm not. Last time I went to the Dr. the nurse said "wow. you've barely gained any weight at all! Looks like you're just getting past your pre-pregnancy weight. Lucky you!" It's true. I am lucky, and relatively certain that will change as soon my body realizes that eating pretzels, slurpees, and chocolate covered cinnamon bears for meals isnot a healthy diet.
• I'm experiencing heartburn and shortness of breath (you know...because of the extra large nature of the floating uterus). I'm not. I take drugs for heartburn and the lack of shortness of breath is probably directly related to the fact that I take less than 25 steps per day. If butt-sitting were an Olympic event I'd have a gold medal. It's not and I don't.
• Back pain. "you can blame your growing uterus and hormonal changes for your aching back....This can make you feel less stable and cause pain when you walk, stand, sit for long periods, roll over in bed, get out of a low chair or the tub, bend, or lift things." OK they nailed this one. I am definitely experiencing a sharp shooting pain anytime I lay down on something that is not my bed. I cry and moan and groan and get stuck in whatever position I landed in. Josh laughs at me as he helps me up.

Somehow they don't think it's important to mention any of the "other" details like:

• Although you spend more time sitting on the toilet than anywhere else, the toilet seat will not be molding to fit the shape of your butt. It's still uncomfortable and cold even though you were there less 5 minutes ago. "They" make it this way so you'll be motivated to leave the bathroom at some point during the day, although since you're pretty much constantlypeeing it's a big waste of time to pretend you get anything else done during the day.
• Just because you're so sick of the only 4 shirts you own that you've started closing your closet door for the first time since you moved into your house 2 years ago, doesn't mean you can light them on fire and expect your husband to support you in buying a whole new wardrobe. Anything you burn can and will be unavailable to you and The Baby will not be responsible to replace any such items. Besides stores don't even make clothes as big as you're gonna get anyway. So don't bother looking. Also, just get used to closing your blinds at 5:15 each night so you can walk around in your underwear as much as possible.
• Forget about stocking up on diapers and baby gear. Immediately purchase a case of waterproof mascara and a case of Puffs Plus. Because honey? You're gonna cry. Every. Single. Day. I decided it wasn't OK to pretend I'm just "in touch with my feelings" anymore when I cried because Fiona's dad turned around instead of talking to her since she was an ugly old ogre while watching Shrek 2 last night. What kind of father does that to his child!?!?! There is something wrong with the world.

It's a miracle BabyCenter hasn't hired me to correct and re-write their weekly updates for them.

Library....

Sometimes Tommy & I go to the library. It's a little bit for Tommy and a lotta bit for me. Because they have this little kid area where Tommy can pull all the books off the shelves and turn their cardboard pages and love on the gigantic stuffed things which I don't have to find a home for.

Meanwhile I can sit in a chair, tell him he's adorable and read my own book in peace.

And I love that.

I really love that.

That's why I'm so scared to tell The Library that I lost the book that is due today. Lost it. Totally lost it. I mean it is gone. Gone-gone. G.O.N.E.-gone. It's not under the bed or the dresser or hiding in my purse or stuck in the fridge or under the sink or with the laundry. It's been that gone for 2 whole renewals while I held my breath confident I could find it.

But today is D-day and I'm relatively certain that Tommy smuggled it into the outside world (where no library book has gone before) because it quite simply isn't in this house.

I've never lost a library book before. So I'm scared.

The nice librarian who told me about story time last week is probably going to break out her librarian-handcuffs and chain Tommy and I to the outside door where we can see the books, see the happy children, but aren't allowed to touch anything.

Or maybe they'll call the Library Cops who will turn on their sirens and let everybody watch while they duck my head into the back cage of their Library-Cop car.

Or maybe they'll force us to stay behind the Library Desk trying to match lonely pages to missing-pag-ed-books. Actually that doesn't sound like that bad of a job....


Either way, at some point today I have to go fess up. I have to tell the librarian that I lost the book. And what if she tells my mom?!

Kind, Smart, Important. Mostly Important.

When I read The Help a year and a half ago I cried. And thought. And discussed it. And probably cried a little more.

It was such a fantastic read. I positively loved it. Of course my mom and my sisters loved it too, so when the movie came out, we all went to see it so we could sit around and discuss it while enjoying greek yogurt, dark chocolate, and cucumber water. Are you ever surprised at how cool my family is? I am.


The movie had me in tears multiple times - I could blame Little John, but the truth is that it is simply a moving story. The book was amazing and the movie did it justice.

I came home wanting to be a better mother, a kinder person, and a more concerned human being.

I also came home telling Tommy "You are kind. You are smart. You are important." and somehow he latched onto the only word in the sentence that was new to him. "Po-tant!"

So when I crouch down and look him straight in the eye and start to tell him in my most meaningful voice "you are kiiiind...." he interrupts immediately jumping to the chase. PO-TANT!!! and smiles his biggest very best smile.

We'll work on kind and smart later. For now I'm just glad he knows he is important.

Camping: One Last Time

I've been saying summer is over for weeks. I've been mourning the loss and writing about how horrible fall is. And how much I love fall.

Apparently Josh was listening to all the whining and took Labor Day weekend off so we could pretend it was summer for just 3 more days. THREE. MORE. DAYS.

Since I'm a-scared-a the dark and woodland creatures, I went to work convincing other people to join us.

And that's the story of why the cleanest people we know agreed to play in the dirt and not shower for 3 days.

The children were thrilled. Ignore the odd-faced grown-up in the middle. The children are worth the picture.

Within 5 minutes of getting there both kids were covered in black ash and Ashley was wounded. We were off to a good start.

It's OK, we walked it off.

At night it got cold. So we warmed our hands by the fire and breathed in smoke. 

We mostly sat around doing nothing the whole time with occasional spurts of eating and cooking.

Except when the kids convinced us to color and blow bubbles and throw rocks.

Our first night was creepy. There was a person (or other 2 legged creature) wandering around our campsite at 3am and I swear we heard one animal eat another alive. Fortunately the 2nd night was a little better (for us - poor Stella must not have been feeling well, so I don't think anybody in their tent slept at all....) and Tommy even went down to sleep without crying.

This was the trip where we ditched the pack 'n play and gave him his very own grownup sleeping bag. He did great until he woke up in the middle of the night and didn't know where he was. So he did join us in our bag after 4am making for a VERY squishy night. (Pregnant Amy + sideways Tommy + average-sized Daddy in one sleeping bag = squished.) But he woke up happy and warm, and when Tommy's happy, everybody's happy.

We had such a great time and were glad to have one last weekend off now that Josh has work & school 7 days/week. Besides, there's something about the mountains that just makes me happy.

And when you add good friends to the mix, the weekend is guaranteed to be fabulous.

I've said it before, but I'm fairly certain this really was the last camping trip of the summer. Until next year when we will be a family of 4.....

Worth A Thousand Words

Lately Tommy loves to look at the pictures on the computer. If I'm sitting at the computer (and I almost always am) he will come and climb into my lap, and demand to see "poot-chooos" and I nearly always cave in and start a slideshow on my second screen.

And when I'm not at the computer, he likes to climb up onto the chair and stare at the screen saver slideshow naming people as they pop up.

Mommy.

Daddy.

Baby.......MEEEEE!!!!

It's as fun to watch him watch himself as it was to watch him the first time he did all the things there are pictures of.

School

School has started. Totally 100% in full swing.

Know how I can tell?

• Josh has started whining about weird things. Like "so then they put in the catheter and did a probe and I didn't get to help at all." and "at 4:30 in the morning the lights downtown are on timers instead of sensors." and "they used to let you practice IVs on yourself, but now it's illegal so I've never done it on a real person. Stupid laws." 
• There are more facebook posts about football than that thing about your bra or cravings or some other obscure weird thing about breast cancer.
• I hear the kids at recess since the Elementary School playground is so close. I just can't wait until I have all the windows in the house open and can really hear the kids at recess. That's the best. Because the windows are open. Not because the kids are noisy.
• The average age of kids at the park during the day dropped by at least 10 years overnight. Tommy suddenly seems so large. So very, very large.
• My house smells like Office Max. I've never been happier.

I really really love fall. I love school starting. I love the smells and the colors and the clothes and the tv shows that come with fall. I love that fall means the end of this pregnancy. I love that Tommy is so much fun right now and I really love the change in weather (which hasn't come yet). 

And in the same breath I'm terrified. Because I might never see my husband again. Because Friday nights mean absolutely nothing to me. Because one of these days Josh is actually going to poke a real person with a needle and tell me all about it. Because Tommy is growing up so fast that before I know it he'll be replacing Josh on the front porch with his backpack on looking sortof adorable all ready for school.