My country bumpkin

This is just funny. He was swatting at flies and/or bubbles with the fly swatter. On the tractor.

And evidently my child never wears real clothes when he's at home - just jammies. Oh, and cowboy boots.

Big Boy Bed

I've finally had to let go of my baby. His crib is gone.

Well, not really gone, but turned into a toddler bed - "big boy bed" according to Tater. He was super excited about it! He even helped my take the screws out and put the new ones back in. Well, the new ones minus a screw, because... like I said, he helped - and one mysteriously disappeared.

But the whole rest of the day, he'd come up to me or Randy and demand we come see his big boy bed - even if we'd just seen it 10 minutes earlier. He even demonstrated how he would sleep in it - complete with snoring sound effects.

We did all this about 3 week ago, and it took a week for him to sleep through the night without waking up a little disoriented and crying, but he's totally used to it now. The best thing is that he still stays in there, even when he wakes up - he just hollers at me to come get him. I know the day will come soon when he figures out he really does have the ability to get up and come to me... I'm not sure how we'll handle that though, since the dog sleeps in our room at night and still does not have a handle on his spasticness, and therefore cannot be around T without jumping and knocking him over. I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Now all we have to do is get rid of those diapers...

Just stuff

OK, I don't have a lot to say, but I'm tired of my gripy birthday post. And I'm sure you are too. So here are a few tidbits. I'll try really hard to post more real stuff this weekend. I do have lots to catch up on, but for now...

Tater is spending the night at Grandma and D-Pop's house. This is actually only the 2nd time he's spent the night away from us. We went to dinner and are now watching a grown-up movie. And we are going to sleep until after the sun comes up. What a concept.

Three weeks down in this school year. I think that is 1/12 of the year. Yay.

I'm wondering if I'm ever not going to be tired again... June maybe?

Yeah... that's all I got. Real posts tomorrow - I promise. Or maybe Sunday.

Birthday Shmirthday

Well, I'm officially 29. Yesterday was the ol' birthday-a-roo, and it was, well... not the best day. It started with tearful greetings from a certain 2-year-old at midnight, 3 and 5 am, when I gave up and put him in my bed. And it ended with coming home to a crateful of dog poo that I had to get out and Randy had to spend the rest of the evening cleaning up after, both dog and crate. I'll spare you the other not-so-greatness. There were definitely some good points too (especially with the sweet gestures from my Mommy!), but all in all, I'm just writing yesterday off.

Today is much better. And I have a feeling no matter how much turning 30 is going to stink next year, hopefully the circumstances of the day will go better. I'll have to just keep that in mind a year from now.

Day 4

Week one is almost over... Hallelujah! I don't remember being this tired the first week of school last year. And the kids we have this year are all saints and Rhodes scholars compared to last year's darlings, so I don't know what my problem is.

I really do like my kids this year. They seem so small and sweet. I even like the boogers, even though I can already tell they're going to be boogers. I can already tell who my biggest challenges are going to be too - a group of 6 boys in my Pre-AP class. Smart and smart-alecky. Cute but obnoxious. Loud but funny. Basically, they are Tater in 10 years. So I already love them, but I'm sure they're going to make me crazy. I do also have a couple of special needs kids that are going to be a challenge in making sure they get everything they need to be successful, but nothing like last year.

I also really like my team of teachers. I feel very blessed to be working with this awesome group of Christian ladies. There are some faces I miss A LOT this year - Jenny, Leslie, Bill, Coley... but I'm looking forward to getting to know some of the new folks.

It's gonna be a great year... or not. The choice is mine.

And I choose greatness.

Anybody want magazines?

For some reason, I have subscriptions to 4 different parent/kid magazines... I haven't renewed any of them in forever, but they keep coming. And the truth is, I don't read them. So anybody want some? I have several issues of Parents, Parenting, Cookie and WonderTime, which is put out by Disney (got that one for free, but it's good!). I will even deliver.

Otherwise, they will all go to school to be dissected and destroyed by 7th graders with scissors. But first I'll have to go through them to take out breastfeeding pics. :)

It doesn't get any better than this

• Sleeping til 7 and then bringing Tater back to bed for some giggly snuggles
• A lazy morning complete with vanilla caramel coffee
• Making brownies with a helper

• A 2 1/2 hour nap. For Tater, not me. I got a lot of scrapbooking stuff organized and actually watched a TV show that was not animated.


• A dust-free living room... the only cleaning I did today. And I'm ok with that.


• Playing outside with my "boys" while a lovely pork loin got happy on the grill


• A 3-dollar kite that actually flies pretty well


• Weather cool enough to require putting on jeans and a jacket in August


• Watching my husband blowing bubbles for Tater to chase and whack with a hockey stick


• Watching my husband climb up on top of his truck in order to get more distance out of said bubbles
• Tater deciding he would rather go to bed early than finish his supper and going down with no fight whatsoever, thus leaving me time to post this.

Thank you Father for reminding me what's important... reminding me to just slow down and take it all in every now and then. And for showing me that I really do have it all.