You know, at one point in my life if someone told me that they didn't want to have children, I would have scoffed at the mere thought. How can you not have kids, right?? I've just always known that for me, it would be a natural step in the progression of my life.
And now, I have children. I get it people. Seriously. I certainly would not change my decision to have kids; Hopefully by now I have made it very clear that my children are my world but I see now that there is another road. And quite frankly-I understand why some choose to take it.
I know that there are a few individuals that read my blog that do not have kids nor do they express any interest in changing that situation. I have been blogging about my kids so much recently- about how wonderful they are- about how they actually poop rose petals and cry tears made of molasses, that I'm sure those people are kind of over it. So for my childless friends who so graciously take time to read about the spectacle that is my life- this one's for you:
I almost never cook- but when I do, I tend to have visions that are far grander than what this night produced. And so here is my mommy disclaimer- both children were uber tired and cranky; they don't normally act this way. And this is the funniest part; watch how Tyson will go from crying to laughing and then tries desperately to cry again. The last shot of the video says it all...
Introducing: Dinner with the Browns........................
Showing posts with label kids. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kids. Show all posts
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Favorite Part of The Day
This is my favorite part of the day.
I must say these words to myself
at least 5 times in a single 24 hour period.
I say them when:
Tyson wakes up in the morning, always with this little tuft
of straw-colored hair
waving at me
from the left side of his sweet head.
And he says
"Good Morning Mommy. Did you sleep good?"
(yes, he really says that)
And I smile and pull him close.
And I think
"This is my favorite part of the day"
I say this when:
I hear Riley cooing from down the hall-
her precious little baby cries that sing "I am a happy child".
And I go to her-
only to be met with something even more angelic.
Bright sapphire eyes and that gorgeous grin
that says "I am happy to be your child"
And I think
"This is my favorite part of the day"
I say this as:
My husband walks in from work
most of the time smiling
other times not
But no matter- I know he is happy to be there
and he hugs his children...
then his unbelievably lucky wife.
And I feel the way I did 8 years ago-
safe and secure,
and love like no other
And I think
"This is my favorite part of the day"
I say these words:
As I sit down to a dinner-
prepared by someone other than myself
which is almost always
and see my family across from me-
Kyle and his far off stare
which I have learned is just the way
he comes down
from the roller coaster ride
that is his career.
Tyson and his rambunctious bouncing
off of walls
and anything else
that has a permanent foundation.
And Riley just being
the most beautiful baby
I think I've ever seen
even when she is regurgitating
green beans
and bananas.
And I think:
"this is my favorite part of the day"
And I write these words now:
As I have just closed the door to child bedroom #2.
Soaking in the silence...
secretly missing the noise.
And I blog about my life
and drink my wine
and smell my husband
fresh from his shower.
And I feel that yes, this is really it:
"this is my favorite part of the day"
But who's to say that won't change
when tomorrow morning
that little tuft of blond hair
is waving at me once again.
Saying "Good Morning Mommy-Did you sleep good?"
and the glorious cycle of my life
just keeps going
and getting better
and better
and better...
I must say these words to myself
at least 5 times in a single 24 hour period.
I say them when:
Tyson wakes up in the morning, always with this little tuft
of straw-colored hair
waving at me
from the left side of his sweet head.
And he says
"Good Morning Mommy. Did you sleep good?"
(yes, he really says that)
And I smile and pull him close.
And I think
"This is my favorite part of the day"
I say this when:
I hear Riley cooing from down the hall-
her precious little baby cries that sing "I am a happy child".
And I go to her-
only to be met with something even more angelic.
Bright sapphire eyes and that gorgeous grin
that says "I am happy to be your child"
And I think
"This is my favorite part of the day"
I say this as:
My husband walks in from work
most of the time smiling
other times not
But no matter- I know he is happy to be there
and he hugs his children...
then his unbelievably lucky wife.
And I feel the way I did 8 years ago-
safe and secure,
and love like no other
And I think
"This is my favorite part of the day"
I say these words:
As I sit down to a dinner-
prepared by someone other than myself
which is almost always
and see my family across from me-
Kyle and his far off stare
which I have learned is just the way
he comes down
from the roller coaster ride
that is his career.
Tyson and his rambunctious bouncing
off of walls
and anything else
that has a permanent foundation.
And Riley just being
the most beautiful baby
I think I've ever seen
even when she is regurgitating
green beans
and bananas.
And I think:
"this is my favorite part of the day"
And I write these words now:
As I have just closed the door to child bedroom #2.
Soaking in the silence...
secretly missing the noise.
And I blog about my life
and drink my wine
and smell my husband
fresh from his shower.
And I feel that yes, this is really it:
"this is my favorite part of the day"
But who's to say that won't change
when tomorrow morning
that little tuft of blond hair
is waving at me once again.
Saying "Good Morning Mommy-Did you sleep good?"
and the glorious cycle of my life
just keeps going
and getting better
and better
and better...
Thursday, September 3, 2009
AquaMan
Tyson started swimming lessons on Tuesday. I felt like it was kind of a big deal-almost a right of passage for most kids I would say and I was the beaming mom on the bench daydreaming about his Olympic debut. Micheal Phelps or not, he does love the water and appears to be a quick learner.
Today was his second class and he actually dove down to the bottom to retrieve a dive stick. I wasn't aware that this was something he could do so I nearly vomited when I saw him do it for the first time. Fortunately, he resurfaced, and the fear was quickly replaced by the most amazing feeling of pride I've ever known. My little man is not so little anymore....
Enjoy the pics!
Riley enjoyed watching big bro- and chewing on velcroe, apparantly.
Today was his second class and he actually dove down to the bottom to retrieve a dive stick. I wasn't aware that this was something he could do so I nearly vomited when I saw him do it for the first time. Fortunately, he resurfaced, and the fear was quickly replaced by the most amazing feeling of pride I've ever known. My little man is not so little anymore....
Enjoy the pics!
Riley enjoyed watching big bro- and chewing on velcroe, apparantly.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
"Tysonisms"- Because 4 year olds are really effing funny!
Yesterday Tyson and I were in the car when the subject of his Birthday came up.
"Tyson," I said. "Your birthday is next month. You're going to be a big boy; you'll be five years old!"
He smiled a little, "Does that mean I'm going to be old enough?" he asked.
"Old enough to do what, honey?"
He looked at me as if I had just asked the most ridiculous question.
"Old enough to do the things that you have to be old enough to do"...
"Tyson," I said. "Your birthday is next month. You're going to be a big boy; you'll be five years old!"
He smiled a little, "Does that mean I'm going to be old enough?" he asked.
"Old enough to do what, honey?"
He looked at me as if I had just asked the most ridiculous question.
"Old enough to do the things that you have to be old enough to do"...
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Sweet Dreams, Little Man
Bedtime with Tyson has always been a pretty pleasant experience. Sometime around four months of age, Kyle and I really began to focus on creating a routine and a set schedule for him. A large part of that focus was on bedtime or more specifically, getting him to the point where he could soothe himself to sleep. It wasn't always easy. Not going to your child after he has cried for nearly an hour was harder than pregnancy, labor and delivery put together! But, alas, we were successful and to this day and for this reason (although not the only one, I can assure you), bedtime is a welcomed event.
But the fact that it has always been blissfully easy doesn't mean that it isn't often, um... timely. I try not to complain about this part simply because I have learned that the longer something takes when it comes to my children, the better (except, of course, for things like illness, surgery, graduation, or jail). Because time is all we have, and in the grand scheme of things, sadly, we do not have a lot of it.
Over the last couple of years, schedule has quietly taken a backseat to routine and now our little OCD angel has a few requirements before he commits to slumber. It is quite a tedious process. It's a ritual of this and a certain way of that. I am probably to blame for most if it but I get it. I get the need to have things in a particular order. It's comfortable and he is his mother's child.
So tonight, as I finally closed the door to our little man's room, I had a fleeting moment of "Geez, I'm glad that's over." Then this realization pummeled me- like a swift little kick in the heart. And then my moment turned into "I'm really going to miss this one day." Consequently, a huge lump begins to form in my throat- very similar to what's happening to me right now- and I knew that I must write this down. Gratefully, I ackowledge that have been blessed with alot of wonderful attributes but a reliable memory is not one of them. For when the day comes that I no longer have a child to tuck in... (lump getting bigger....), I need to have something to help me remember.
After his mandatory "5 more minutes of play", we begin the process of picking out his bedtime stories. It used to be "story", but somewhere along the way, one more was added as standard protocol and I'm still not sure how he managed that one. I choose to remain involved in this process so that I can enforce my self-imposed rule of 3 vetos. For example- I rule out anything that is Christmasy because reading a Christmas story in any other month besides December kind of freaks me out and is just totally unnatural. Once a decision has been made, we make our way into my bedroom where I take an additional 15 minutes to fold the permanent pile of clothes on our bed. Wait, no. I've probably only done that once. Most of the time I just throw them in the closet. But I digress... We crawl into bed where Tyson has to decide what book he wants to hear first. The bigger one usually wins out and off we go. The second book is typically smaller and shorter in text. For this book, he prefers for me to "do silly"- which is code for substituting the original words for crazy, sometimes questionable, less appropriate words. For this book, I have found it increasingly difficult to stay creative and I'm losing my audience! His tolerance for silly has doubled and now "penis breath" or "boogernoodle" just doesn't turn the giggle box over anymore. As a result, the second book takes about as long as the first which completly nullifies the "one long story, one short one" rule I implemented sometime ago. This has lead me to believe that my son is officially smarter than me and he knows it.
From here, he asks to play a game he refers to as "the game where we talk about what we love about", which is us taking turns saying what we love most about the other. I tell him that I love when he is a sweet boy and doesn't fuss. Or I love when he helps take care of his sister. He responds with things like, "I love it when you take me fun places..." or "I love it when you make good snacks for me to eat..." 99% of the time, I have to stop him mid-sentence because I think my heart will just explode.
Once he has had his fill of this, we head to the bathroom. Here I tell him he must pee and he does so by very carefully unrolling his pajama pants and underwear down to his ankles and sitting on the toilet like a girl. This baffles me and goes against everything that is beneficial about having a penis in the bathroom. So even peeing takes forever! Then we wash his hands and brush his teeth. Then he has to have a drink of water- then one more, oh and then "just one more, mommy...", he says. "I've never been this thirsty in my whole big life".
Next, he has to go give his Daddy "one more hug"- so all the way downstairs he goes. He slowly maneuvers each step as if it's the first time he's ever set foot on a staircase. He hugs his daddy and eventually finds his way back up the stairs at a speed that can only be explained as sloth-like. If I allow myself to watch this, I feel impatience boiling up from deep dark places. So I choose to take this moment to knock out a few of my own bedtime rituals. Once I hear him fumbling around in his room again, I head back to find that undoubtedly he has built something that he is insanely proud of and must not only explain, but also show me how it works. Of course, this explanation is on the fly so the amount of "um's" sandwiched in between every other word is nothing short of mind blowing. Knowing that these are the moments that can render future issues if not handled with proper attention, I smile politely and listen as if he were explaining the cure for cancer. Who knows, maybe one day he'll do just that...
Eventually, I am forced to cut in and restart the bedtime engine. Now I turn out the light, always being sure that the fan remains on, and his next move is to "kiss Lightening". For this, he climbs on top of his table and kisses a framed picture of Lightening McQueen from Cars. Now he must show me how far he can jump. He prepares me for what he calls "the best jump ever" and sails through the air like the little monkey he is. I clap, give him a high five and say appeasingly, "that WAS the best one ever"... The pride is almost pouring from his ears. Next he must plug in his Thomas humidifier/nightlight and he reminds me every night that this is something I am not allowed to do.
Now we are at the point where his skin begins to actually touch linen and what a glorious moment it is. If I have not already put socks on him, he will remind me to do this here. Now I am searching for socks because they are never where they should be. Once socks are located and placed on his sweet little feet, I tuck him in. We turn on his music (this is from the mobile that used to hang over his crib) and find his baby. This baby (a stuffed lamb) has also been with him from infancy and is still totally irreplaceable. Many times, the damn thing is lost in the madness that is his room and I have to go on a baby hunt. Once the search and rescue is over, he proceeds to ask for a lullaby. This is a new one he has added only recently. But I oblige and sing a short little ditty. With this, he appears somewhat satisfied and I can now begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Then he says "Mommy, we're gonna have a great day tomorrow!" He gives me a thumbs up and the cuteness is utterly blinding. "We ARE going to have a great day tomorrow!" I assure him. Then lots of kisses, lots of "good nights" and "I love you's". I begin to walk towards the door. He sits up and I take my usual place under the frame.
"Mommy"
"Yes, Tyson."
"Um..................."
"What is it sweetie"
"Um....um.....um........"
"Tyson, what do you need, it's late"
"Um..........................................................."
"Tyson............"
"One more hug and kiss"
He smiles brightly and holds his arms wide open. Admittedly, I am a little frustrated but how can I not give in? I walk over and squeeze him tight, all the while reminding myself that all too soon there will come a time where I will be the one begging for one more... So I squeeze him tighter.
I head back to the door.
"I love you buddy. Sweet dreams", I say.
"You have sweet dreams too, Mommy", he whispers back.
He pulls the covers closer and rolls over to his right side. Victory! I close the door, listen for a few more seconds to be sure that he will not call me again before I make it downstairs. I hear nothing but that sweet, soothing, familiar music that I have heard for almost five years now. Then, silence. My little warrior has given in and all is right with the world.
But the fact that it has always been blissfully easy doesn't mean that it isn't often, um... timely. I try not to complain about this part simply because I have learned that the longer something takes when it comes to my children, the better (except, of course, for things like illness, surgery, graduation, or jail). Because time is all we have, and in the grand scheme of things, sadly, we do not have a lot of it.
Over the last couple of years, schedule has quietly taken a backseat to routine and now our little OCD angel has a few requirements before he commits to slumber. It is quite a tedious process. It's a ritual of this and a certain way of that. I am probably to blame for most if it but I get it. I get the need to have things in a particular order. It's comfortable and he is his mother's child.
So tonight, as I finally closed the door to our little man's room, I had a fleeting moment of "Geez, I'm glad that's over." Then this realization pummeled me- like a swift little kick in the heart. And then my moment turned into "I'm really going to miss this one day." Consequently, a huge lump begins to form in my throat- very similar to what's happening to me right now- and I knew that I must write this down. Gratefully, I ackowledge that have been blessed with alot of wonderful attributes but a reliable memory is not one of them. For when the day comes that I no longer have a child to tuck in... (lump getting bigger....), I need to have something to help me remember.
After his mandatory "5 more minutes of play", we begin the process of picking out his bedtime stories. It used to be "story", but somewhere along the way, one more was added as standard protocol and I'm still not sure how he managed that one. I choose to remain involved in this process so that I can enforce my self-imposed rule of 3 vetos. For example- I rule out anything that is Christmasy because reading a Christmas story in any other month besides December kind of freaks me out and is just totally unnatural. Once a decision has been made, we make our way into my bedroom where I take an additional 15 minutes to fold the permanent pile of clothes on our bed. Wait, no. I've probably only done that once. Most of the time I just throw them in the closet. But I digress... We crawl into bed where Tyson has to decide what book he wants to hear first. The bigger one usually wins out and off we go. The second book is typically smaller and shorter in text. For this book, he prefers for me to "do silly"- which is code for substituting the original words for crazy, sometimes questionable, less appropriate words. For this book, I have found it increasingly difficult to stay creative and I'm losing my audience! His tolerance for silly has doubled and now "penis breath" or "boogernoodle" just doesn't turn the giggle box over anymore. As a result, the second book takes about as long as the first which completly nullifies the "one long story, one short one" rule I implemented sometime ago. This has lead me to believe that my son is officially smarter than me and he knows it.
From here, he asks to play a game he refers to as "the game where we talk about what we love about", which is us taking turns saying what we love most about the other. I tell him that I love when he is a sweet boy and doesn't fuss. Or I love when he helps take care of his sister. He responds with things like, "I love it when you take me fun places..." or "I love it when you make good snacks for me to eat..." 99% of the time, I have to stop him mid-sentence because I think my heart will just explode.
Once he has had his fill of this, we head to the bathroom. Here I tell him he must pee and he does so by very carefully unrolling his pajama pants and underwear down to his ankles and sitting on the toilet like a girl. This baffles me and goes against everything that is beneficial about having a penis in the bathroom. So even peeing takes forever! Then we wash his hands and brush his teeth. Then he has to have a drink of water- then one more, oh and then "just one more, mommy...", he says. "I've never been this thirsty in my whole big life".
Next, he has to go give his Daddy "one more hug"- so all the way downstairs he goes. He slowly maneuvers each step as if it's the first time he's ever set foot on a staircase. He hugs his daddy and eventually finds his way back up the stairs at a speed that can only be explained as sloth-like. If I allow myself to watch this, I feel impatience boiling up from deep dark places. So I choose to take this moment to knock out a few of my own bedtime rituals. Once I hear him fumbling around in his room again, I head back to find that undoubtedly he has built something that he is insanely proud of and must not only explain, but also show me how it works. Of course, this explanation is on the fly so the amount of "um's" sandwiched in between every other word is nothing short of mind blowing. Knowing that these are the moments that can render future issues if not handled with proper attention, I smile politely and listen as if he were explaining the cure for cancer. Who knows, maybe one day he'll do just that...
Eventually, I am forced to cut in and restart the bedtime engine. Now I turn out the light, always being sure that the fan remains on, and his next move is to "kiss Lightening". For this, he climbs on top of his table and kisses a framed picture of Lightening McQueen from Cars. Now he must show me how far he can jump. He prepares me for what he calls "the best jump ever" and sails through the air like the little monkey he is. I clap, give him a high five and say appeasingly, "that WAS the best one ever"... The pride is almost pouring from his ears. Next he must plug in his Thomas humidifier/nightlight and he reminds me every night that this is something I am not allowed to do.
Now we are at the point where his skin begins to actually touch linen and what a glorious moment it is. If I have not already put socks on him, he will remind me to do this here. Now I am searching for socks because they are never where they should be. Once socks are located and placed on his sweet little feet, I tuck him in. We turn on his music (this is from the mobile that used to hang over his crib) and find his baby. This baby (a stuffed lamb) has also been with him from infancy and is still totally irreplaceable. Many times, the damn thing is lost in the madness that is his room and I have to go on a baby hunt. Once the search and rescue is over, he proceeds to ask for a lullaby. This is a new one he has added only recently. But I oblige and sing a short little ditty. With this, he appears somewhat satisfied and I can now begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Then he says "Mommy, we're gonna have a great day tomorrow!" He gives me a thumbs up and the cuteness is utterly blinding. "We ARE going to have a great day tomorrow!" I assure him. Then lots of kisses, lots of "good nights" and "I love you's". I begin to walk towards the door. He sits up and I take my usual place under the frame.
"Mommy"
"Yes, Tyson."
"Um..................."
"What is it sweetie"
"Um....um.....um........"
"Tyson, what do you need, it's late"
"Um..........................................................."
"Tyson............"
"One more hug and kiss"
He smiles brightly and holds his arms wide open. Admittedly, I am a little frustrated but how can I not give in? I walk over and squeeze him tight, all the while reminding myself that all too soon there will come a time where I will be the one begging for one more... So I squeeze him tighter.
I head back to the door.
"I love you buddy. Sweet dreams", I say.
"You have sweet dreams too, Mommy", he whispers back.
He pulls the covers closer and rolls over to his right side. Victory! I close the door, listen for a few more seconds to be sure that he will not call me again before I make it downstairs. I hear nothing but that sweet, soothing, familiar music that I have heard for almost five years now. Then, silence. My little warrior has given in and all is right with the world.
Friday, May 15, 2009
The Official Introduction of Our Latest Production
This is Riley Elizabeth-
Her cheeks are the most delicious things I have ever seen- like two giant sweet potatoes hanging from her face.
She laughed out loud for the first time today. There are simply no words to describe that feeling. So there I was, laughing through my tears, physically melting into some sort of liquid bliss.
I must say it has been different having a girl. Many people warned me of this. Not that it's a bad thing, of course, but it's just different. This is my daughter. This is a little girl who will learn from me (but thankfully not ONLY me) all that it means to be a woman. And for some reason I am completely freaked out by this. I feel like I have alot crap to sort out before I can be the example that she deserves. Geez! She's only three months old and she's already driving me to therapy!!
But I just want so much for her...
First, if the picture above is any indication of her future face to forehead ratio, I want her belfry to shrink a bit...
But mostly I want her to be confident and strong.
I want her to be healthy and LOVE HER BODY no matter what flaws she may have.
I want her to respect herself.
I want her to respect her family.
I want her to respect the earth.
I want her to let me braid her hair.
I want her to let me comfort her when her heart is broken.
I want her to know I've been there too.
I want her to see the world.
And I want that world to be nice to her. Afterall, she is my little girl.
I want her to be authentic,
brave,
honest,
good,
and happy...
Just be happy, Riley Beth. Always be happy.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Mother's Day 2009
I had a wonderful Mother's Day with my 3 most favorite people in the world! Kyle and I both harbor an unwavering love for the city that we live in and we try not to take its accesibility and flavor for granted. So we spent the afternoon walking around Downtown Nashville trying to put on our best tourist faces. What a lovely day! Here are a few pics... 
