Gray - your turn!

Gray -
I don't write down NEARLY enough of the little boy you are and the hysterical things you do, so I'm stopping today - as you and your sister nap - and trying to capture just a glimpse of who you are as a boy so your wife can read about you in 35 years.

Here's the boy I see -

1. For starters, you're hysterical.  You are now almost 3 and your vocabulary is just growing by the day and the way your mind works is so manipulative...I mean smart :).  You negotiate constantly.  I will say something like, "Gray, time to go get dressed" and you, without missing a beat, will respond, "Grayson go get dressed, then come downstairs and watch a show and have a snack, then go to park and later to the museum...does that sound like fun, mommy????" - literally, you will say all that.  I was simply looking for a "yes ma'am" but you have now mapped out your day with the sweetest voice and tone and in complete seriousness.  If you're wondering how I respond, it's typically with a smirk, "let's go upstairs and get dressed and afterwards we'll talk about the rest of our day." 

2. You love, love, love to eat.  I won't lie - there are times your dad and I wonder if we need to up the greens and lower the carbs in your diet.  Mostly just when we tuck in your cream color dress shirt to your pants with no belt and it's the end of the day.  You got a little Homer Simpson in you at that time of night.  The other day (now month) we were at our friend's William and Hudson's house and your friend Johnathan was there too.  William and Johnathan were being bribed to eat just one bite of their sandwich and I turned and looked at you as you proceeded to shove the entire last quarter of your sandwich in your mouth, had completely finished all your pretzels and hummus and were looking to help your friends finish off their lunches.   You also may or may not have squeezed your first poop into the potty because you were trying SO hard to pee in the potty again so you could get more m n m's.  Well, you didn't pee again but because you pooped you got m n m's AND a new special toy.  Your dad wondered if that counted as your first poop but I gave it to you.

3. On that note - you always refer to yourself in third person and it's totally my fault.  Instead of saying "you" I always say "Grayson" and instead of saying "I," I always say "Mommy" - I'm working on it - hopefully we'll have it fixed by high school.

4. You LOVE your friends.  You, at any given time in the day, will ask what Landon and Fields are doing and if we can go see them.  When we do see your friends you get so hyper you'd think I gave you a 5 hour energy before we arrived.  Seriously, something in you just goes bonkers and you are a ca-razy man and I love it. I love that you love your friends because that's how I feel inside when I am with my friends but I'm too old to act like that.  Live it up, my son - when you're with people you love..go crazy.  Here is a picture of you and your cousin, Haley - it's one of my favorites.

5. I love when we pray with you and the things you want to pray for.  You pray almost nightly for a train we heard one day a few months back at a park but we couldn't see it.  I don't know why you got obsessed but you did and now you pray for that train often.  I'm sure the conductor is thankful. Sometimes at dinner when your dad prays for the food he'll announce, "let's pray" and as he's praying for our food to nourish our bodies and I'm hoping he finishes quickly b/c Hazel is getting antsy to eat, you will take that opportunity to ask for prayer for your friends or for Am and Josh or anyone that is on your heart.  It's great to hear the pause in your dad's talking as he's thinking of the food getting cold but how can we not pray for the things you feel led to pray for.  He always prays for those things when you ask.  Just so you know though, you ask to pray for your cars and trains a lot...typically we just end up thanking God for cars and trains - we don't actually pray for them.  This happened the other night and you prayed for James and Thomas and Percy and so on and so forth.  Your dad kindly told you that we like to pray for PEOPLE and friends in our lives, not just trains, and you then just repeated your prayers for your trains and were confused as to why dad acted like your trains didn't have souls.  Silly daddy.

 ..
6. Barney songs.  I used to pride myself on the fact that I listened to my own music even when toting you around in the car.  I was dead set on having you request Sugarland or C-lo rather than "cheesy" kid songs.  Of course your dad got wind of that and bought you your first ever kid song cd and smiles often thinking of how I have lost my music battle.  I'm not gonna lie - it's brutal..but you love it.  You call it your 'barney songs' even though they have nothing to do with Barney.  The kids voices are so annoying and they say things like, "I know a great song we can sing about.....spaghetti!!!!!" and then another kid chimes in, "OH GOODIE, Sarah Lynn."  Turns out you have favorite songs, too.  When Row, Row, Row your boat comes on you politely ask to change the song - yet, we've learned that Eddie Bettie bo bettie...banana fanna fo fettie" is your jam.  You also LOVE to shake your sillies out and jump your jiggles out.  I wish often I could jump my jiggles out - it doesn't seem to be working.

7.  You LOVE hair - especially my hair.  I sometimes get worried you will end up on "crazy fetishes" - the new show on TLC.  You just love to touch and smell my hair.  I had some girls over for a bachelorette party a few months back and a few of them witnessed this addiction so they took a whiff themselves.  They did confirm my hair smells good - so you're not totally crazy - but I won't lie there are times when I wonder if I need to break you of this.

8. You ADORE your sister.  Especially now as she can sit up and play you always want her around.  You cry if I take her somewhere and you don't get to come.  You love to just play with her.  Often times this ends up with her being COVERED in stuffed animals or toys and we have to talk about what is happening but I do think you're trying to love her.  I may or may not have dumped an entire basket of train tracks on your lap the other day so that you could physically feel what she is feeling when you put loads of toys right on top of her, but I digress.  I think this goes with the one above about you loving your friends. You just want to be with people - I ADORE that.  She's eating more and more now and after every meal you look at her and say, "Hazel, you're a mess, sweet girl"  She's crawling now and I think that you prefer she doesn't.  As much as you adore her she brings you MUCH anxiety.  Always worried about where she's headed or what toy she's going to get.  You look ahead to find the toy she could want and you run to grab it.  We know WHY you are doing this but you typically play it off like you're trying to protect her from getting hurt.  It's quite genius.  One of your favorite things is to sit with her in her crib after baths and before bed.  I can't wait until she can actually play so you have your little partner in crime. I love your love for her as it reminds me of Uncle Jason's love for me and vice versa - it's such a gift.

9. You've got some of your mom in you and you worry..a LOT. You worry about things that we don't even know where the fear comes from and then other worries, like your fear of Hazel now pooping in the bath with you is quite legit and you have grounds to stand on as she did in fact let loose in the bubble bath the other night while you were in there with her - but unfortunately you can't let things go.  Your dad told me a story from just this past Saturday when he was leaving to meet me for a night of dancing and you were a little hesitant about the sitter as it was someone we don't have over often.  You were a little clingy when your dad starting getting ready to go but he asked you to open the door for him.  So, as you love to do - you ran to the door and opened it for dad to leave and he was thinking it was going to be a long, drawn out process with lots of tears and reassurance needed, but apparently he took one step out the door and you slammed it shut while yelling, "DON'T WANT THE DONKEYS TO GET ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" - and that was your goodbye.  You have a fear of donkeys and a fear of moths and although I should NOT encourage either of these, sometimes when you're letting the heat out it's the only thing that works :).


10. I just adore you like you wouldn't believe. You teach me DAILY about lots of things - sometimes patience, sometimes forgiveness, sometimes love..but today you taught me about grace.  We were at the doctor's office to get Hazel's ears checked and you were being the opposite of obedient while we were there.  The whole time you were disruptive, loud, and disobedient.  Of course my pride took a beating as I felt I was an inadequate mom in front of the pediatrician (you typically don't do well when we are there so it's a reoccurring event).  So, I proceeded to act in fact less mature then you were acting and I raised my voice to you and disciplined you with still some anger in me when we got home.  Once everything calmed down and I finally melted I came to you to ask for your forgiveness.  I said, "are you mad at me, buddy?? are you mad at mommy??" and you just said, "no silly mommy, I'm not mad at you, you didn't be rude at the doctor's and I'm not mad at you." and I said, "will you forgive me, buddy for yelling at you?" and you responded, "I forgive you, mommy..you weren't bad at the doctor's office." - I was so convicted on how angry I was at you and then when I released that on you, you didn't seem to have one feeling of anger towards me. You showed me so much grace. Oh, to have your maturity at times.  Thank you for the lesson and showing me Jesus today.

I love you, buddy.  I can't wait to keep learning about who the Lord has created you to be.

Always,
Momma

2nd Child Syndrom

I know a LOT of people are thinking that Hazel has gotten the shaft already as second child since there are almost ZERO blog posts to discuss her life.  The "awww, poor Hazel" I get constantly as she flashes those pearly gums (with 2 new bottom teeth to show for) puts her in a sympathy category only one level above Daisy.  I'm here to say though that I can summarize Hazel's life up between the months of 0-5 pretty easily.

Sad.

Sweet girl was JUST SAD. Some asked if she had reflux, others wondered if she was getting enough food (then they looked at her and realized she was), and still others just searched her up and down for a hair to be tied around a finger or toe as the reason for the sadness.  Kyle and I had another theory.

Drama.

She's our girl - she's my girl..what did we expect?  She's was our little drama queen and we also have come to realize that sleep is UBER important to her. So, in those first few months, all she wanted to do was sleep and UNLIKE me, she is pretty partial to only sleeping in her bed.  I once fell asleep at a Villanova basketball game with thousands of people surrounding me cheering. I didn't care - passed right out.  Kyle is appalled that I once fell asleep at Braveheart..in the theater...4th row back.  I specifically LOVE to fall asleep in the car (not if I'm driving) or a plane - they are almost toxic to me - I get in and I get drowsy.  Schweetums on the other hand liked her bed.  Falling asleep in a car seat was torture to her.

You could almost HEAR her saying through her screams - if this is life outside of the womb, I want to get back in.  It was sad.  So, because she was tired all the time and because she had an older brother who, as it turns out, did NOT want to nap all day every day - schweetz could be found screaming in her car seat at almost any hour of the morning...and afternoon...and evening until bedtime.

BUT -

Then we hit about 5 months and we got happy. SO HAPPY. My little strawberry head started getting on a schedule and sleep was predictable and that made her happy - and happy baby means happy family so we were ALL happy.  She started sitting up around then and getting on all fours as to threaten us that she was going to be mobile soon.  The docs kept trying to get us to feed her solid food but she'd have no part of it. If she had ANY of it, you can guarantee it was because she ripped the spoon from my hand and shoved it in her own mouth.  Yes, already we can see she's Miss Independent.  Gray never ever cared to hold his own bottle - he'd probably be content with me putting grapes in his mouth one by one as well - but little sweets is all about doing it herself so us trying to feed her never went over well. Oh and she and ear infections are synonymous.  Jury is still out as to whether tubes will be in her future but they come one right after another since October.  we go back tomorrow to have them checked again - I'll keep you posted.

NOW -

My sweets is 7 months and moving all over and pulling up to stand on whatever she can find (did I mentioned Gray didn't do that stuff until about 11 months??). She IS her brother's worst nightmare - seriously.  Well, her and donkeys - but that's another post.  She can't be stopped.  Gray is so torn - he LOVES to play with her but would prefer she not touch a single toy (unless he has picked it out for her) and would prefer she not touch him - yeeeeaahhh...that's going to be a problem.  As you can imagine he has anxiety much of the day when she's home unless she's "trapped" in her exersaucer or her swing..or eating.  BUT oh man, WHAT. A. LOVE.  So entirely different from her brother but so disgustingly cute and fun.  It's not often I want time to stop but lately I have.  Just stop.  She loves her some food now, we do sibling baths, her giggle is the best thing in the world, and she will actually sit in her car seat without screaming.  Does it get much better than that?  We think not.

Alright, so that's our sweet, sweet girl all caught up.  Now I can just post about the daily happenings of life and that is such a relief :).  Next up though is a post I started about 4 months ago recapping some of who Gray has been and his funny antics.  I'll get that posted and we'll then really be able to move forward.  Oh blog - it's good to be back.

This is how we roll

My (Jenny) brother and I have a long standing tradition of doing a "bad ass" picture anytime we are together.  Since getting married we have taught our spouses the ways of the wise.  Now...we teach our children.  Ladies and Gents..I give you Miss Hazel Brock in all her "bad ass" glory.

Also, just because I think my kid is funny - here are some embarassing photo booth shots taken over the last few months on our computer with the last ones being this evening :).  Yes, I am talking on the phone in the first one - this was the first photo booth I ever did and wasn't sure really what I was doing.  My apologies to whomever I was talking to - I promise I was listening.

A little teaser -

If this doesn't get you excited for my next photoshoot to post, I don't know WHAT will!

Stay tuned!

Public Service Announcement - Car Seat Safety

If you can't tell by her facial expression, this is serious stuff, people.  Warning, this is not an uplifting post and it's extremely sad but it's important to spread the word and educate people to what can happen if we're not careful with our babes in their car seat.  To anyone that has or will ever watch a baby that is still in a car seat - this is important. 

A friend of my mom (and a friend of mine) works for an organization called 'Safe Kids Worldwide' - she's no joke.  She knows car seat safety better than I know celebrity gossip - and that's saying a lot.  In fact, interesting note - she was on the television in the hospital talking about car seat safety while I was giving birth to Grayson.  That information was not needed..but I digress.  Here's the deal - she is contacted by parents all the time that have had their baby die due to a car seat incident as these parents want to have their stories heard and get the information out there so others can learn from what went wrong.  She recently came across a death of a 10 month old baby girl that was TOTALLY PREVENTABLE and I'm using this blog as a vessel to inform my fellow parent friends of what happened so that this doesn't happen again.

Here's the story straight from the mouth of my friend -
A very caring, older mother (she was nearly 40) used a (well researched) babysitter to watch her beloved 10 month old baby girl.  She was only leaving the baby with her for about 2 hours and dropped her off in her car seat.  The mom never thought to tell the babysitter not to leave her baby in the car seat the whole time and to never leave her alone.  Long story short, the babysitter unbuckled the crotch buckle but left the chest clip attached at the baby’s chest.  When the baby got fussy, the sitter put the baby in a bedroom and shut the door.  She soon quieted.  When the sitter went to get her about a half hour later, the baby was deceased in the seat.  She had “submarined” down in the seat because the crotch buckle had been left open and the baby got “hung” on the chest clip.  She could not pull herself up and reposition.  So here is the message:  know who is watching your baby at all times (daycare, church nursery, babysitter) and be sure they know how you want your baby’s safety to be handled.  Car seats are for the car.  They are not babysitters.  Children in car seats and swings need to be attended by adults.  

For more information about this and other safety tips for kids birth through age 14 go to www.safekids.org.

GOT IT????  GOOOOD.  OH and one more thing - if you have a blog or other social media outlet that you could post this story on to spread the word to your community, please do so - the more awareness out there..the safer these sweet babes are!!!

3 Months Old!

Here are the many faces of schweeeeeeeeeeeeet girl at 3 months old.

 

and for comparison sake - here is a link to her big brother at 3 months old! CLICK HERE

And yes, she could hide a paci in those cheeks if she really wanted to!

Weddings, Weddings, and more Weddings!

 Two of our favorites - Gray's old nanny, Annmarie and Jenny's best friend and Gray's godmother, Christina got married in back to back weekends in early September and Gray was the ring bearer in BOTH weddings!!  He did such a great job in both.  In Annmarie's he was pulled down the aisle (outside wedding) in a wagon and only yelled "Help me, daddy...Help me!" a few times and in Christina's, despite a not so successful rehearsal, he walked down the aisle holding my hand (which was okay as I was in the wedding party), very peacefully and went right to his daddy who just HAPPENED to be holding a powdered donut as his special treat :).  Unfortunately Kyle and Gray didn't get to see that whole ceremony as Gray was very curious as to "Where dey goin'??" (when the readers got up to read) and then in dead silence he wanted to know, "Where's Hazie Haze???" - and...I proceeded to give Kyle the glance and he and Gray exited stage left.  Up top is what Am chose for her wedding and then we had full dressing rights in Christina's wedding so he wore the below sear-sucker suit with a purple argyle tie to match the colors.  Oh and yes, Hazie Haze was looking her finest for both events :).

Just as a side note - as I was posting this Gray pulled up a chair next to me and took one look at the top picture and proceeded to announce, "OH, HE'S CUTE, MAMA...HE IS CUTE!!!!" - we struggle with self confidence around here.