My baby... the brute

This doesn't look like a baby who cares if he has a black eye or not...

I am 33 years old and in my life I have had one black eye. That didn't come until I was a junior in college and I was sliding into home plate and got hit in the face with a softball right before my college softball team went to California for 10 days. My precious little angel face baby is 18 months old tomorrow and this is his third black eye. The more bizarre part is that it doesn't seem to bother him at all, he rarely cries when he gets them. His biggest issue is that he runs everywhere he goes and his mind often gets ahead of his feet. I wonder how many black eyes I have to look forward to over the course of his life.

Life is good

Here I am, 31 weeks to the day pregnant with my second little boy. I went to see Dr. Doris today, who I believe is the best doctor ever. When I was at this point in my pregnancy with HAS, I had already been in the hospital for 8 weeks- laying on my back, unable to shower every day, unable to get up except to go to the bathroom and unable to see my family every day. While it was tough, I look at HAS's precious face every day and realize how much it was worth it. I haven't gained near the weight that I gained with HAS because I am not trapped in my bed. In five weeks, they will take out the cerclage and from there, I'm just ready to have this little guy. I start seeing the other doctors in the practice now, but my prayer is that Dr. Doris is the one that delivers me.

A lesson learned...

We had some friends up to the cabin for the weekend and they have 11 month old twins who tend not to be great sleepers. As the adults were chatting, we were talking about what a great sleeper HAS was... let that be a lesson to us. That night, we went to bed around 1:00 AM and he woke up at 2:30. We changed him and got him some milk and put him back down. He wanted no part in that. We tried to lay him with us (which we had never done before this day) and all he wanted to do was crawl all over us. That didn't work either... David sent me to sleep with JMS in the other room, so the pregnant lady could get a little sleep. HAS stayed awake until 4:00. He fell back asleep until 5:30 but then was up for the day. If you took his worst 10 days of sleep ever (including when he was a newborn) they were not as bad together as this one night. The good news is he was shockingly pleasant the whole next day. No one could have guessed he had only gotten about 5 hours of sleep. Note to self... don't brag about how great of a sleeper he is... Lesson Learned.

Fire's Creek

There is this small creek with mountain water near the cabin called Fire's Creek. We go there frequently for picnics and to frolic in the water. There is a small area where the kids can tube down the creek and JMS loves it. Words, however, can't describe exactly how cold this water is. I was wearing a long sleeve shirt and shorts and I was still really cold. It didn't seem to bother him at all.

HAS is a little to small to tube down the creek, but he loves the water and he loves to throw rocks into the creek. He picks up handfuls at a time to throw them. He will even sit down in the freezing water. We had to take him out earlier than JMS due to his lips turning blue. He didn't care, but mommy did.

HAS and David walk in the creek. He loves his daddy.

For the Love of Music

In our house, music is a big deal. I have to admit that David is behind all of it... he loves to have music on all the time, where as I prefer it just to be quiet sometimes. I don't know if this is because in my profession, there is always someone talking, so I just like to hear myself think. Well, both of the boys love music. JMS can sing a song almost entirely after only hearing it one time. I don't even know the names or singers after 50 times. HAS will come running from anywhere in the house if David plays certain songs on the computer. So... I had bought David an MP3 player around Christmas and we're just now getting around to putting songs on it. I feel like the last person in the world to go into digital music...

Here Goosey Goosey

We went to our neighborhood pool for the afternoon. We weren't there for 15 minutes when it started to thunder, so they had to clear the pool. I had taken some extra bread (that was moldy) to feed to the geese if they were there. JMS enjoyed it more than HAS did and the aggressive geese enjoyed it the most.

HAS wasn't afraid of the geese (probably because he's not afraid of anything) but he didn't always want to throw them the moldy bread. He kept trying to put it in his mouth. The other problem with feeding the geese is that his arm wasn't strong enough so when he threw the bread, it often fell right at David's feet where the aggressive geese wanted to come get it. David wasn't a huge fan.

Our home away from home

David and I love going to the cabin. It is a peaceful place where you can sleep in late and nobody cares. Time just seems to move slower up there away from all the craziness of the city of Atlanta. We (mainly Dad with some help from David and Patrick) just finished the rock on the lower half and I can't believe how amazing it looks. We try to get up there once or twice a month. We have been fortunate during the summer, because we don't have to worry about when David's off days fall when I am already off. It doesn't matter because we can go up there whenever.

My little Ham

When we were up at the cabin, HAS found this straw hat to put on and play with. He is such a little ham and he always reacts to how people respond to him. It's hard to believe he is almost 18 months old. Where has the last year and a half of my life gone?!?!?

Looks like he's doing a little bit of a dance. He runs all over the place and doesn't know what it's like to stand still. I'd love to say he gets that from David, but I just don't think I could say it with a straight face. I love his energy and that I can see myself reflected in this tiny little person.