Joining the club

Well, I finally decided to join the club with most of my other friends and turn 30. I guess it's some sort of milestone but it's not really that big of a deal to me. I've wanted to be married with kids basically my whole life. I'm living my dream so I couldn't be more happy to be thirty!

My Mom and Dad have been here for a week so we could go out and celebrate our anniversary and spend some quality time with the kiddos. We all went out and ate Mexican food and ate some yummy birthday cake. We are planning a trip to New Orleans in December after Ford is weaned to celebrate our anniversary and my birthday. It was a wonderful surprise and I can't wait to go to New Orleans - I've never been before!

Claire singing "Happy Birthday" to me. So precious it is worth the 30 years it took to get to the point that my 2 year old little girl is singing to me!


We've had a busy week around here and are looking forward to visiting with our good friends the Mareks this weekend. We have an abundance of babies being born to our friends recently. The baby boom started today with little Kathryn Elizabeth Maynord! We are waiting for news of the arrival of Frances Townsend and Caroline Ryle any minute! Nothing is sweeter than a little newborn baby. I thought maybe one would come on my birthday but no such luck. Oh, I also got my kitchen painted (thanks, Dad) for my birthday! I'm sooo excited. It looks awesome and it make me smile!

5 years ago today . . . July 26, 2003

I DO!

Ladies, take a number and get in line!

I snapped this picture of Ford the other day and when I looked at it I just stopped. It's a glimpse of him as a little boy! Something about his hair and the way he is holding his head just makes him look so old (as in two not twenty). I hate to play the "He looks like . . ." game but I think he favors pictures of my dad when he was little in this picture. I guess time will tell. For now adorable.

Here's a glipse of those new teeth. Not that most of you care out my son's dental progress but Grandmas and Aunts read this blog and they care about new teeth a lot so there you go - picture of the teeth. Speaking of teeth I'm happy to report that Claire's tooth is recoving from it's recent trauma MUCH better than we expected. We were throwing around terms like root canal, abcess, extraction and partial just a few weeks ago. In the big scheme of healthcare a bum tooth isn't a big deal AT ALL but no parent wants their precious little girl to have a grayish black tooth sitting right out front if they can help it. The Dentist said about 20-30% of them go back to white so we weren't getting our hopes up. The fact that it had continued to darken wasn't reassuring but it has lightened up in the past couple weeks and although it is still gray it's not nearly as noticeable as it was before. It's still at risk of abcessing so we will just pray that doesn't happen and we can hang on to our slightly gray tooth for about 5 more years.

More pictures for those following our kids - Ford is so close to crawling!! I think he is still officially a creeper but he is going to break out any second! Fun stuff!

I had to share this of Claire last week. I glanced in at her during her nap and this is what I found. She moved into a big bed when she was 20 months old so we needed to make it a pretty heavily protected fortress for her with all of these rails and such. So almost a year later she picked holes in the netting to entertain herself. She sits on her bed with her feet through the hole and rests her arms and chin on the railing. Once I asked her what she was doing and she told me her feet were in time out. Apparently the right one had hit the left one. So this day the feet must have been in time out for a while because she rolled over and fell asleep like this. Oh, and that is a toy catalogue the she sleeps with. She looks at all the toys while she lays there falling asleep. She told me Ama was going to buy them for her! She has many pillows, many pacis, her Bunny, a big pink hippo, the catalogue, a matchbox car and a flashcard with picture of chocolate cake also in there with her.

Who is 9 months old??

So the calendar tells me that 9 months ago I met Ford for the first time. It's hard to believe for two different reasons. It seems like just yesterday was his "birth" day and at the same time it seems like I've always known him. I can't really remember what it was like before we had this amazing little person in our life. It's like we were waiting for him to get here forever (not just the pregnancy!) and when I held him in my arms I felt "finally, you are here.". I guess that's why I know we aren't done having babies - I still feel like I'm waiting to meet some other little people.

What a true blessing children are. The word blessing is kind of thrown around these days but when I stop and really try to grasp the true meaning and find examples in my life my children just exemplify what blessing is to me. I think a lot of focus is made on the children and how you are going to raise them, train them, discipline them etc. etc. but what no one tells you before you have kids is really the one being raised, trained and disciplined is YOU! God uses these incredible little instruments to fine tune your heart and spirit and that truly is the blessing. I remember hearing before I got married that marriage only magnifies your personal weaknesses and relationship issues with your husband. True. You can repeat that again and substitute "having children" for "marriage". Think you might be a little bit selfish? Have a baby. You'll know for sure. Think you might be slightly impatient? Have a 2 year old and know for sure. It is so perfect how God uses them to show us our weaknesses and helps us overcome them through the incredible, consuming love we have for them. So back to the example above: You think you might be selfish? Have a baby and know for sure THEN find out that you love that baby so much that you get up in the middle of the night to comfort, console and nourish them and don't even really mind when you snuggle up to that sweet little bundle and they snuggle back. Think you might be impatient? Have a 2 year old and know for sure THEN find out that you love that little person so much that you will read "Llama, Llama Mad at Momma" 3 times in a row and not really mind at all because you see the wonder and amazement in their eyes each time.

So nine months later Ford is days away from crawling (just rocking and getting kind of stuck on his hands and knees not really sure what to do next), has 5 teeth, drinks from a straw and a cup, his favorite food is mango (just like his sister!), likes to say DaDaDaDa over and over again and has mastered getting from his tummy to sitting. He is 21lbs 8 oz (75%) and 29.5 inches (90%). He is as healthy as he can possibly be - praise God. I love this baby age (aside from the first 2 weeks this is my favorite) so I am just soaking up this precious time with him.

Fun Ford

This is Ford and his buddy, Sawyer. Sawyer's sister, Sydney, is Claire's little friend so it works out well that our boys are about 8 weeks apart. We had lunch and went to the park with them today. You can tell that Ford thinks it's fun to see another person his size around!

The other night I was getting the kids ready for bed. I put Ford's PJs on first which meant Claire was running around the house naked until I could get to her. She thought it was pretty fun to run around the house yelling in her birthday suit and Ford did too! He was laughing hysterically at her everytime she ran in the room - or I guess I should say streaked into the room! The laugh at each other a lot which really warms my heart.

This is Ford with two of the three Causey triplets that are also his friends! We had a baby shower for another friend at their house the other night but I couldn't seem to find a time when one of the girls wasn't nodding off to get a picture of all 4 of them together. You'll just have to imagine another one that looks just the same sitting there with these. To make it worse I have no idea which two these are! They are either Emory, Ellison or Elizabeth. You get the idea of how cute they are. They are about 5 weeks younger than Ford. Not many babies make Ford look small but these girls have their chub on (in a precious baby sense of course)! Call me crazy but I think that having triplets would be a blast! Maybe I've been watching too much Jon and Kate Plus 8! Now I don't think that being pregnant with triplets would be terribly fun but imagine three precious 3 year olds running around together! How much fun!

Down on the Farm

On Saturday we drove from the Lake to "The Farm" in South Georgia for a family reunion. Above is Rhett, Claire, Me, Chrissie, Tish (baby Graham in the tummy), Mac, Bobby, Ford, Rudy, Jo Anne and Gamma. We enjoyed seeing family that we don't get to see very often and catching up with our immediate family who we also don't get to see very often. Of course all Claire needed to find was the tire swing and she was one happy little girl down on the farm.

Two years later

This picture was taken 4th of July 2006 when Claire was 6 months old and Jake was just a puppy. Now take a look at what 2 years will do . . .

4th of July

We had a wonderful long weekend celebrating the 4th of July! We had so much fun at Lake Martin with the Slappeys and the Duncans (Rhett's cousins). We had 6 kids under 8 so that was an automatic crazy good time! We ate a lot of yummy food, had wonderful fellowship and enjoyed some great fireworks on the 4th.

Ford (8mo), Judith (5yr), Reuben (7yr), Solomon (3yr), Evelyn (1yr) and Claire (2yr) It is so funny to think that when I first met the Duncans 5 years ago Reuben was Claire's age and Judith was Ford's age! They have since added two more cuties and we've started our family. It has been so much fun watching their kids grow up. They are abolutely darling and so sweet and well behaved. We have learned a lot from Ryan and Amy about parenting and we know we will have a lot more questions for them in the years to come! It is exciting to this only child with no cousins anywhere near my age that my kids have others in their life that they will grow up with. Claire is surrounded by boys at every turn so I'm especially grateful for Judith and Evie - I hope they are special friends as they grow up. Judith is quite a little gymnast and wears hear leotard around every where (she has it on under her dress above). Claire put on her leotard too and she ran around following Judith.

A better day

So things have improved since yesterday - thank goodness. That was one for the record books. I'm busy getting ready for the long weekend which is moderately difficult with a hurt back and bum toe. Anyway, the show must go on. I thought I'd throw in some happier pictures since my last post was such a downer. I think Rhett's family will appreciate this picture of Ford . . .

This is the same face that Rhett had in all of his pictures as a child. He claims he was comtemplating big intellectual ideas but what ever he was doing apparantly his son is doing it too! He sat like this for about 15 minutes and stared at the sprinkler. We had such a wonderful string of lovely summer days this week. I think this was the way summer was intended to be. Don't get me wrong it was 90 but with low humidity and a slight breeze it was down right pleasant. Remember last summer when it was 103 every day for about a month with no rain (I was pregnant so I can add a degree or two to that - it was miserable). Anyway, we celebrated that string of sunny days and played outside a lot since it wasn't too hot and humid to breathe. Claire wasn't much for the sprinkler. She didn't understand why she should want to get wet. I finally tossed on of her dolls close to the sprinkler to try to intice her to get a little wet but she just rescued the doll and that was the end of the sprinkler.

We have graduated to both of the kids in the race car which is terrific from my standpoint. There is now a lot of "He's touching me!" but I guess I should get used to that because I will be hearing a lot of that from now on. Ford is making a move on Claire's cookie - that didn't go over too well! Have a great 4th!

Mom of the Year

When I woke up this morning I had no idea what I had in for myself for the next 15 hours. . . Well, everything started out pretty normal except I've been having some lower back pain for the past few days but it has been annoying more than anything else. But it is annoying enough to make me, well, annoyed so that set me back one step for the day. Everything else went pretty normally until naptime. The kids both went down and I started down my long "things to do while the kids are sleeping list". I got about 45 minutes of things done when Ford woke up. Apparently nature had called and, alas, that was the end of his nap.

I still had stuff to do on my list so I just figured he could play while I finished up. I needed to move a picture in our bedroom that has been too high since I put it up this time last year. So finally after a year of it bothering me I was planning on fixing it. I plopped Ford down in the middle of our bed with a few toys and realized I left the hammer in the kitchen. I ran into the kitchen grabbed the hammer and as I was walking back into our room I looked up and saw Ford reaching out over the side of the bed and come crashing down on his head. I dropped the hammer and ran to him. I was absolutely sick. I thought there was a good chance I had just watched my child break his neck. Apparently he had lunged forward to his tummy from where I had left him sitting and thrown a toy over the edge of the bed. He was reaching over for the toy and his head took him over. He landed completely on his head and his neck kind of bent in a very not so nice way.

This is where PICU nurse and Mom collide. Do I scoop him up and console him or do I stabilize his C-spine?? (I picked him up although I was assessing him the whole time.) Once I realized he was moving all of his limbs I immediately thought hospital . . . ER . . . CT scan . . . neurosurgery. WAIT! It is July 2nd! The new Residents started YESTERDAY! I did not want to take my baby to the hospital to be seen by pediatric and neurosurgery residents who were 4th year medical students on Monday. Besides it is a sad joke in my unit that all of the parents who abuse their children always make the same excuse "He fell off the bed". No doubt an interview with a social worker would be involved at some point to rule that out. I had all of these thoughts in about 3 seconds as I was picking my baby up off the floor. We rocked and he nursed and calmed down after about 10 minutes. I just kept on telling him I was sorry over and over again because, probably more than ever in my life, I truly was.

I called Rhett and told him what happened. He assured me that as long as he was responsive, moving everything, didn't appear to have any tenderness, pupils equal etc. that he was probably fine and we should just watch him at home. I still felt like a sorry excuse for a mother but I was reminded of several people I know whose kids had fallen of a bed, couch or crib at some point and the kids were fine and the mothers weren't bad either. Here is a picture of the damage . . .

Poor little guy. He's got an abrasion and a nice goose egg thanks to Mommy. Sorry little man. I didn't think you could make a move like that.

This didn't change the fact that Claire had a followup dentist appt. this afternoon. I don't think I mentioned that before now. A few weeks ago she had a big fall on a hard floor and damaged one of her front teeth. It started to turn gray (basically a bruise on the inside of the tooth) so we took her in had it X-rayed and we were going back today for a follow up. Imagine how this looks to the dentist. Last week one kid had trauma to her mouth and this week the other one shows up with head trauma. Anyone suspicious yet?? The incredibly nice Dentist (you'd have to be incredibly nice to be a pediatric dentist) was showing me a comparison of the two xrays so I gingerly jumped up off the exam table where I was sitting with Claire so I could get a better look. At this point I slam my toe on somesort of box or stair or something on the floor. I couldn't really tell what it was because I was seeing stars. Everyone was very concerned about it but I tried to play it off because it was a slightly less than gracious move. After we get done talking about the tooth he says "how's your toe?" and I look down to see half of the nail ripped from the nailbed and a pool of blood collecting under it. Of course everyone is now making an even bigger deal about it and I'm still trying to play it off because I mean who can do this kind of damage at the Dentist's office??? It was numb by that point anyway so it didn't matter. The good part is he didn't charge me for the xray - I think he felt pretty bad about my toe. I decided that I probably deserved this toe punishment due to the damage I had just caused to my child. So out of the dentist's office we stumble - Claire with her bum tooth, Ford with a huge red lump on his head and me dragging a bleeding toe. And that is quite enough for today. Excuse me while I limp off to bed . . .