No Beans for You!

When did my boy become a boy? Well, I know he IS a boy, but he's been a baby. Not a little boy. I had a "moment" today as I was doing some work for the IaGS. I have spent the last 2.5 hours on the computer and the phone and my little boy has been so so patient. Playing with his new toot toots and watching PBS. Well, I am just starting to wrap up my last phone call, and he's laying on the ground in the sunroom fiddling with his nose. Something he doesn't do. So I look thinking there's a boogie in it that is making him itch. So I close my call and look in his nose. I see nothing but what looks like a boogie stuck WAY back up his nose. I try to get it out with my boogerpicker. Nope, nothing. So I switch sides, sit him up and sticking out his nose is a rock. A ROCK!? What would posess a 2 year old to stick a rock up his nose? A ROCK!? I got it out, only minor minor bleeding and he's fine. But it leaves me wondering if there's something else up there or what he will stick up his nose next...And that I need to spend my precious little free time with my son, not on the phone and the computer...

I'm TOOOOO!

Ok, not quite sure why picasa chose this pic to post since I chose a totally different photo. Perhaps it was reading my mind because I'd THOUGHT of posting this. On with the blog.

Brighton is officially TWO! I can't believe it. It seems like just yesterday we were sitting in the hospital room waiting and waiting to meet this beautiful child! Just wondering who he would be. Would he be cute? Would he look like mom or dad? Would he be a fussy baby or an easy going baby? Would it matter? Would I notice the difference? What would we do with a baby?! Needless to say, all those questions (with the exception of who he looks like) have been answered. He has really been the most wonderful blessing to both of us. I finally admitted yesterday that I do indeed spoil him...(is 10 thomas the tank engines plus tracks plus tunnels plus extension sets plus a party plus ... for his birthday overkill?) I always said "this baby is not going to be spoiled! We're not going to have our living room overrun with toys!" HAHA! How can you say no to that face? We hadn't expected that he'd be A. so sweet and B. oh so cute! and C. have those puppydog eyes. Yes, my boy is spoiled, but that's OK. He's not rotten just yet. Yet.

He's starting to learn all kinds of new phrases and words. He's picked up the whole "I TOOOO!" thing when you ask how old he is. He will hold out his two index fingers to indicate the number. He can't quite figure out how to make a "V" with his one hand yet. Though I'm sure no one but Grammy, Dad and Mom will believe it because he looks at us like we're out of our everloving minds when we ask him to tell us how old he is in front of anyone else. His other new thing is "Ow!" whenever you're doing something he doesn't particularly like. Like holding his hand to cross the street or picking him up so he doesn't continue to run around the mall making his mom and dad crazy. That's a real joy. I don't know where he picked this up at but I'm sure someone will make sure DHS knows that our little two year old is running around saying "OW!" I can hear the phone call now. He's also figured out that the cat says "MEOW". He used to just kind of make a high pitched grunting noise to imitate the cat, but now it's an all out "MEEEOOOW." Cute as the dickens. And he calls Feebee in for bed "peebee." And "peebee" happily obliges and gives a few extra kisses if Bright is anywhere within licking distance. "I pee" is another new one. You've seen the "I poop" blog, now we have #1 to go along with #2. He tells us all kinds of dramatic stories, complete with pitiful facial expressions, but we just empathize and try to pick out the words that we know. He seems so serious and so affected that you have to control your giggle and say "oh really? Oh that's too bad!!" Or whatever. Gotta switch it up once in a while or he catches on.

Will keep you abreast of all new words and things as we go. But for now, it's 11:30 PM and I need to get to bed. Have a great day.

Rough Start

I'm sitting here reading some of my friend's blogs when honestly, I should be napping. Iw as up all night stressing about my schedule next week and how the heck I'm going to do it. So I got around about 5 hours of sleep. Bright is napping and so I thought I'd try something. Seeing pictures of Amelia, I wanted to be reminded of Brighton at that age. In this photo he's a little younger than Mia but darn is he cute?

Bright and I had an interesting morning. We ended up having to take a stray cat to a vet in Clarence to have it euthanized. The cat had gotten in with Sebastian, our outside dog, and she shook it, first breaking it's back (I could tell because it wasn't moving it's back legs) and then tried again until I separated her. In the meantime while I'm trying to get the poor beast out of the kennel with Sebastian, I hear the door open and out walks mister smartypants. I abandon this poor hurting animal to take my son back inside where I know he is safe. Finally I can get the cat covered and put into a kennel. At this point, the cat is still alive but barely. I put the kennel in the car, get Brighton and load him up, put a bra on myself lest I trip, and off we go to Clarence. Fortunately (or unfortunately - however you want to see it) the cat had expired on the way. I felt really bad. I was hoping that at least the cat could pass without pain, but time did not allow that. But the cat went quickly, thankfully, and finally without fear (safe in a kennel not in Sebastian's kennel). I took the cat to Pet Memories, where we send animals from the clinic to be buried or cremated then we came home and promptly changed our clothes and cleaned up before Bright ate lunch and finally laid down for a nap. We got home just shy of noon. No matter how far removed you are from an animal, you still feel a little twinge when something like that happens. I suppose I'm a little more hardened to it just because of the nature of my job and my environment, but it still sucks.

Randominitites

I know that's not a real word, but these aren't all random thoughts or random photos or random any kind of category...they're all just random.

There is seemingly no end to the amount of change you have when your toddler has a piggy bank. You find it everywhere all the time - especially when you need a good bribe.

The dog makes a great cleanup crew...so long as you're not feeding her raisins because then your problem is two fold...

Todlers d

hate when you try to do anything on the computer without them...as you can see by the random jibbits in the sentence. And they find mice (computer mice) fascinating

Little baby birds remind moms of how fragile life is, and how fierce moms can get...

How is it that a kid can ride in a trailer behind a bike and still become so exhausted that they can't stay awake, but they're not doing any of the work?

Yellow pencils make great self-tickle sticks for a 2 year old

When does it click that the thing on the door can make it open up? All of a sudden, he has learned to open the door and let himself out to play with his "ball"

Why do cats who really don't want to be outside dart outside every chance they get then scream (literally) to come back in?

Why do I feel a connection with matthew mcconnaughey just because he's holding a shekere made from a gourd? I feel like I could just walk up to him and start a conversation...weird.

Why does a 50 mph wind in the country stress me so?

3/4 Great Day!

Ok, so 3/4 is better than nothing right? Brighton and I woke up late this morning, which was nice for a change. We had some breakfast, then went for a bike ride. We doddled over to the bank, went through the drive through on the bike (which I love to do just because it seems so silly...) then we went to check the mail - junk - then we went to pay for the pavillion for his birthday party on the 3rd of June. Finally, we made it over to the park where Brighton swung, went on the merry-go-round thing and got really dizzy, and finally up the ladder and down the slide. That was the funniest. This is older equipment in a sand pit (yuk) and the slide he went down gave him a bit of a boost at the end so he shot off the end and "plop!" right on his bum in the soft sand. He thought that was pretty darned funny and we both laughed every time he landed.

On our way home, I noticed that the same train was sitting outside of Casey's that was there an hour before when we started. So I decided to keep driving and pick up some water and a snack and we could talk to the engineer if he was still there or just watch the train. Alas, he wasn't there but we sat behind Casey's in the large lot, Bright ate his nutrigrain bar, I my granola and we shared a gatorade and watched the train as it started up and went on it's way. As we were watching, the engineer looked out the window and saw us. I told Bright to wave and so he did and the engineer waved back. Brighton was totally star struck. Then out of no where, the engineer dug into this carharts and pulled something out and tossed it into the grass for Brighton. We ran to pick it up, I had envisioned a train whistle or something but it was a big roll of smartie candies. Which was still very very sweet. So all afternoon, Bright carried around his roll of Smarties saying "toot toot!" "toot toot!" It just melted my heart. It was so kind of him to do that - even to just wave and toot the horn would have made Brighton's day for sure. I kept telling Brighton that his Great Grandpa Reilly drove a train like that! He liked that idea "papa?" "Yep. Great papa!"

Finally we met Winton, a long faced, sweet natured golden retriever. A very nice man (a self proclaimed train junkie from Iowa City) stopped in McVille for gas and asked if Brighton would like to meet Winton. "Of course he would!" So we ended our bike ride with the toot toot and the sweet faced Winton. Not a bad morning! Finally Bright and his "toot toot" blanket nodded off for the next three hours.

The last 1/4 of my day wasn't horrible, but I'm waiting to see what tomorrow brings. Starbucks is getting very trying these days. We're switching management which is OK but my schedule (along with three others that I know of) is all messed up and I am working days that I am working at the clinic. I'm hoping that I can work it out but I'm not sure that I can. It's not a "fun job" right now, so we'll see what the future holds and if things get straightened out. Not to mention, I had a pregnant woman (8 mos) about drop to her knees with either really bad braxton hicks contractions or low blood sugar and had to force her to sit and not move until I could reach her husband who was downstairs at the mall working. Ugh. What a night. I sure hope she and hte baby are OK though. I was pretty scared for a little while and went into immediate mommy mode. "SIT STAY DON'T MOVE UNTIL I GET BACK!" Or is that Groomer mode? Not sure...

Eyelids

Since Brighton thinks it is so much fun to open your eyelids while you are sleeping and say Hi, we decided to do the same thing to Brighton on Sunday. Now that I look back at that moment, maybe that was why he was so crabby until we left to go have breakfast and go on a bike ride.

-Dad

The Old Days

So in the old days, I'd have at least one day where I could sleep until 10, wake up, have a cup of coffee and a piece of toast...by myself in peace. Thanks to Dad being home today and a long night of insomnia lastnight, I was able to do that this morning! Well, mostly anyway.

We put Brighton to bed lastnight around 9:30ish and shortly thereafter went to bed ourselves. Before long, I hear whimpers and grunts from the monitor in Brighton's room. So I go in to check, and he had flipped himself totally around to the opposite side of his bed. I picked him up thinking I'd just put him back to the right side (like a turtle) and go back to bed. He was roasting~it was pretty warm in his room lastnight but I didn't think it was THAT warm...but apparently I was wrong. So I brought him in our bed where for most of the night I didn't get much sleep except between the hours of 10:30 PM and 1 AM. I woke up, laid there with my eyes 1/2 open and finally around 2 I took the fan into Brighton's room, took him back and went back to bed where I still laid there until around 3 AM until I got a nose bleed. At 4:30 AM after downloading some new podcasts & tempering off my nosebleed (I'd hoped) I decided I was tired and went to bed. Ahhhh blissful sleep.

Somewhere between blissfull sleep and the following anecdote, I went back into Bright's bedroom for some reason...

I slept until about 7 when I felt some little boy who shall remain nameless lifting up my eyelid and about 2 inches from my face exclaiming "HYYEE!" This went on for a while until Dad decided it was time for himself to wake up and let mommy sleep. So after several attempts of trying to wake mommy up, Bright gave in and went with Dad, who cleaverly (finally) shut the door! When I finally woke up, Andrew told me that he told Brighton that he should go to sleep since Mommy is still sleeping (he usually takes a morning nap when at home) Which led me here. Ahhhh blissfull sleep. Quiet (mostly) morning...Beautiful sunshine. (Wierd dreams - for a later installment) It's going to be a good day.

Wow...it's been a long time

See? So long I double posted...

I POOP!

Ok, I'm pooped is more like it. I can't believe it's been so long since I've blogged. We are officially in the "twos" now. Brighton will be two years old at the end of this month. Can you believe it?! I sure can't. We're finally settling back into our routine again since Dad's been home. He was off galavanting in Florida and Pennsylvania for a week and a half and I got to stay home with Bright and the dogs...but I won't go into that, at least not now and not here.

Brighton's newest thing is telling us when he poops. Or toots. Or has to poop or toot. And now that he has a big boy potty, whenever he invades the bathroom when I'm going, he too has to sit on his potty and say "I poop!" He's getting to be such a big boy. It makes me so sad...but he's getting to be a lot of fun too. He is 90% hysterical (funny), 5% charming, 5% stinker. (don't worry, the picture is just after his bath when he told me he had to "poop" and I was attempting to cover his privates which he thought was terribly funny so I had to snap the picture QUICK!)

Another fascination of his these days is his ball. Ball Ball Ball Ball. Football, basketball, baseball, dora ball, cat toy ball, anything round and throwable is a ball. He even sleeps with his dora ball. There's always been something comforting in the circle shape for me. Something about the softness of it, the all-encompassing & neverending line. Maybe he feels the same way. Whatever his fascination is, I'm glad we have a dog that shares his fascination. They keep each other busy for sections of time long enough that Dad or I can get something accomplished :)