Brady and the terrible, horrible, very bad, no good vacation

So we'd had a vacation planned to Table Rock for 9+ months. It was for the week after the 4th of July. I was stoked!! Ecstatic!!! SO ready to get away from home and work. Let me just give you a quick outline of how our vacation went...........

Monday--worked all day. We were planning to leave Tuesday after work so the kids could stay awake for a few hours on the ride down, we would stop and eat, then they would fall asleep and sleep until we got there. Perfect plan.....Waiting anxiously for Tuesday to come.

Tuesday (7/9)--wake up at 6:15am to hear Tommy saying, "Mommy!! Mooooooooommmmmyyy!" Go in their room to see Tessa crying and rolling around. Pick her up and she starts vomiting. Quickly set her back down so all her vomit is contained on her crib sheet. She stops. Pick her back up to comfort her and she hurls again. Repeat above steps about 6 times. She finally stops gagging when I pick up her. Get bed cleaned and Tessa cleaned. Call Brooke to see if she can come to our house so she can meet us at the doctor later that day and so Tommy and Tessa can keep sleeping. Praise God when she says yes! Go to work. Wait for my doctor's office to open so I can schedule appt. Try to work while worrying about my kid and how we're getting her to the appt. Leave work early to help with transportation, medication administration, vomit patrol, etc. The doctor said it was a virus (shocker) and it would most likely be gone in 24 hours. We decide to head to Table Rock because she's acting better.

I should've known to turn around as soon as I saw her giving me this look from the back seat.

We leave around 4:30pm. Kids fall asleep quickly and sleep 2 hours. We stop for dinner at Babe's......

.....(which was not as good as it looks) and eat hamburgers while Tessa cries and clings to me like I'm going to abandon  her any moment. Finish our drive and get checked in to the resort. Get the kids to sleep. Tessa starts fussing and pukes all over one of the beds. Office is closed, so can't get clean sheets. I fall asleep in one full size bed with both kids on top of the comforter since our sheets are covered in Tessa's lunch. Finally get to sleep.

 

Don't let them fool you. They're not as innocent as they look!

Wednesday (7/10)--wake up around 8am. I revel in the fact that nobody is puking. Eat breakfast and head over to Grandma and Papa's camper so we can leave the cling-on with Grandma and me, Daddy, Papa and Tommy can head out on the boat. Tommy loves it!

Don't be scared of his grimace....that's actually his, "Say cheese!" face.....we're working on it!
We get 3 hours of time on the water with no whining or clinging. Grandma reassures us Tessa is sleeping and fever is under control. She actually slept like this.........

....for about 30 minutes. THAT'S how exhausted she was. Get both kids back to our room at the resort for lunch and naps. Realize Tommy has a HORRIBLE diaper rash and he screams and thrashes every time we try to wipe or change him. Spend 30 minutes trying to rationalize with a toddler that if we can wipe the yuckies off, it won't hurt so bad. He screams, "Don't wipe me!! Don't wipe me!!" Finally get everyone to sleep for a nap.  Head over to Grandma and Papa's camper again to have dinner. I'm optimistic it will be a good, calm evening. Tessa is still acting like we're Siamese twins. My usually happy-go-lucky girl is the grumpiest grouch on the planet. I end up holding her during my whole dinner, but it's tacos (my fave) so I'm able to enjoy it anyways. Head back to the resort and get both kids to bed. Tommy wakes up no less than 4 times because he has diarrhea and needs changed, but he's screaming in pain because his diaper rash hurts so bad. We (of course) have no diaper cream because neither of our kids has ever had a diaper rash. Spend 5-10 minutes with each diaper change trying not to get poop on anything and trying not to hurt Tommy while we clean him up. Sleep MAYBE 4 hours.......maybe

Thursday (7/11)--Daddy leaves early to go buy diaper cream for Tommy. Then they go to Papa's to hang out with him on the boat. I am left in the little, tiny resort room with Grumpy Gracie. Discover she's actually cutting FOUR teeth while recovering from her viral infection. Perfect. Start to feel a little bad for being so annoyed about her clinginess and grumpiness. She continues to whine and cling all morning while we wait for Whitney to come visit us. Whitney shows up and I feel a little like kissing her because it means I'm not alone with my daughter anymore (mom of the year, I know. Don't judge. You weren't there). We take Tessa out to swim in the pool while we wait for Nick and Tommy to bring the car back so we can go shopping. Tessa actually smiles for the full 45 minutes we're in the pool.

 The boys FINALLY bring the car back around 1:30pm. They lay down for a nap and we head out to go shop! I find the perfect shirt for family pictures and Grumpy Gus has layed off the grumpiness. I start to get optimistic about the vacation. We head back to the resort and over to Grandma and Papa's again for dinner. Tessa resumes her clinginess, so I once again eat dinner with her on my lap. After about 3 bites of my hamburger, I notice a bodily fluid running down my leg. It is not MY bodily fluid. I'm confused for about 30 seconds and then realize Tessa has blown diarrhea out of her diaper and all over me. Awesome. Icing on the cake, folks. Runny, brown icing. I try not to throw up or make everyone else at the dinner table throw up. Get Tessa changed and the carpet cleaned (sorry Grandma and Papa!!). Leave her at the camper while I drive back to our resort room to change clothes. Change and get back to the camper only to find out Tommy has also pooped through his shorts. Get Tommy and Tessa BOTH changed. Wonder how my life came to revolve around so much vomit and diarrhea. Praise God that Tommy's cousins have to shown up to entertain him!

 Try to enjoy the cherry cobbler that was made for dessert but end up holding Tessa (betcha didn't see that comin, did ya?) and throw a miniature fit about not being able to do anything without toting around a 20 pound tooth-growing, viral infection,-having, diarrhea exploding baby on my lap. But I try to get over it because I chose to be a mom and she is ultimately one of the 3 best things I've ever done in my life. Forgo the cherry cobbler (my hips thanked me) and head back to our room to try to sleep. Repeat the process of the previous night--waking up every hour to change Tommy while trying to keep him from screaming, "No, Mommy! NOOOOO!" making the neighbors think we're abusing our child. Get another 4 (unconsecutive) hours of sleep.

Friday (7/11)--Wake up around 8am. There is no vomit, no fever and no dirty diapers on either of my children. I thank God and pray that the day goes better then the rest. We decide it's FINALLY okay for Tessa to ride on the boat. She appears to be semi-happy again!

We rented a pontoon boat so we'd have that and Grandma and papa's boat. Spend the first three hours on the speed boat holding Tessa while others tube and swim. Get on the pontoon boat for lunch and try to let Tessa walk around a little bit. She wasn't having it. Can you believe she only wanted to eat lunch on my lap?! Get the kids and ourselves fed............and then it happened. Tessa's aunt Christi became the most amazing person on earth. She insisted that she hold Tessa while I tube with my nieces. She said the most beautiful words......"You go have fun. I'll hold her and if she cries, she cries." I didn't stick around to ask twice :) I tubed for the next hour with both of my nieces and got to enjoy conversation with them. It was the best part of my vacation!! A full hour of no crying, no whining, no clinging!! I don't know if I've ever been that grateful in my life! And guess what. She cried for a minute and then fell asleep. She was fine! I think we both needed that hour away from each other! After tubing, we spent the next few hours pulling other people on the tube and stopping to swim. It was nice. Tessa seemed to relax a little after her nap with Aunt Christi. She was good while we ate dinner at the marina. She was REAAAAALY digging the ranch.

Neither her or Tommy pooped on anybody the whole evening! At that point, I considered that a huge accomplishment. After dinner, we headed back to our room and got the kids to sleep early--SCORE! I think they both slept through the whole night that night.

Saturday (7/12)--Our "vacation" is over. Daddy and Tommy got up early but the boat wasn't working, so they came back to the room when me and Tessa got up. Tessa was a little whiny, but not as bad as she had been. Tommy's diaper rash was mostly gone. I am grateful but can't help thinking that of COURSE everything gets better the day we're leaving. But that's okay. We check out of the resort and meet everyone for lunch. Tessa charms everyone with her dimple and giggle that nobody has gotten to see all week. Tommy and his cousin "Mackie" (as he calls her) stay entertained with my phone. Lunch is like a dream. I start getting sad that we're leaving. We head home around 1pm. Tommy and Tessa both fall asleep for almost 3 hours. They wake up happy as can be. We only have to pull over to change ONE poopy diaper--a miracle! They are angels for the entire drive. We pull up to the house and they get out laughing and running around like we didn't just spend 4 days cooped up in a tiny room with a teething baby and exploding bottom end of a toddler. I start to wonder if they were plotting against me and Nick.

I can't say I'll ever consider this one of our best vacations. I was really excited to travel with Tess because it was her first time going anywhere and she's normally so good-natured. That dream was dashed :) I think I'll at least be able to laugh about it sometime soon. I think the whole trip can be summed up in two words: puke. diarrhea.  Yup. That's it! Overall, I'm grateful that we got to spend time with family and relax a LITTLE bit. But I don't think we'll be going again any time soon!

Hard Stuff

Wednesday was a normal day. It was turning out to be a long day because it was the day before the 4th of July and I was antsy to get off work and get home.  The doctor I work for was off for the rest of the week, so I was doing odds and ends and finishing up some stuff before the holiday weekend.

One of our last patients of the day came in and it was a 5 month old. The scales are right by my desk, so I was sitting there as one of the nurses weighed the baby. The parents went on and on about how big the baby was getting and they were so excited and proud because starting life as a 23 weeker and being as big as that baby was is a big deal!

About 20 minutes later, we started hearing a beeping noise. We have a lot of patients that have all different types of monitors, so it's pretty standard, but our office was pretty empty that day, so we weren't sure where it was coming from.  A few seconds later, a nurse came out and called for Dr. Shah. The little baby wasn't breathing.

There are about 5 million thoughts that go through one's mind when you hear that a child isn't breathing......What happened? What can I do? What are the parents thinking? I can't imagine being that mom. What if that was my kid? .........Working where I do, I've seen a lot of things. I've seen babies having seizures, I've seen adults having seizures, I've been slapped in the face by a 300 pound autistic boy and had a shoe thrown at my head.  But I've never seen a baby stop breathing.

It's scary. Sad. Horrible and unthinkable.

We called EMS and even though it was a mere few minutes, it felt like forever for them to get there. I was actually surprised in the end at how prompt and attentive they were. There were no fewer than 20 people there--they just kept coming and coming.

All I could think to do was pray. I prayed over and over that God would breathe life into that baby's lungs and give everyone who was working the knowledge and skill they needed in that exact moment to save it's life. I didn't know what else to do.

A few of the EMS techs came out shaking their heads. I had no idea what the status was, but that was not a good sign. A few minutes later, they came out with stretcher and I prayed again that God would send His angels with that baby. After everyone had cleared out, I went to the back to see if I could help clean up or do anything and the dad came back in to get the rest of their stuff. He was crying and I could feel his pain, if only for a moment. As he took the carseat and blanket and rushed out to his car, I remember wondering if his life would ever be the same again.

I found out a few hours later that the baby died in the emergency room. I cried the whole way home because I just kept imaging how I would feel if that were my situation. I can't even fathom the kind of pain they were feeling....how their whole worlds had been rocked.  I kept wondering if the baby was in pain. That thought breaks my heart. And I'm sure as parents, they are wondering the same thing and I can't imagine thinking your child was hurting and not being able to fix it. I kept seeing the joy on their faces as they talked at the scale about the weight gained and the progress made. They were so optimistic and excited.

That's the thing. It was a perfectly normal Wednesday. Nothing out of the ordinary. They were doing great and they were there for a routine check up. And in an instant, their whole lives changed. Without any notice, without any warning, without anything to soften the blow. They had no idea they would leave their house as a family and return home without their baby.

And the scarier thing is it could happen to anyone, anytime. There's no discrimination against who's on the receiving end of pain. There's no rhyme or reason as to why or who or when or where or how.

I hope so badly that they know Jesus. I have no idea how anyone could get through something like that without Him. I hope and pray they find a peace and comfort that's beyond our understanding. If you think of it, please pray for those parents. Perspective is the best eye-opener and putting yourself in their shoes makes for an earth shattering reality that we've got it good if our families are alive and healthy and well.

It's hard not to get upset and wonder why an innocent baby died and WHY those parents are having to go through what they're going through. It's not fair. It's not right.  But it IS. It happened. It can't be changed.

So all I can do is be thankful for the short amount of time they got to spend with their baby and make sure it changes my attitude about my kids. When they're screaming, they're alive. When they're throwing food all over, they're alive. When they're fighting, they're alive. When they're messy, they're alive. When they're whining.......they're alive.

And I'm so grateful every day for life. It is precious and sweet and sacred and not to be taken for granted.

11 months

Whooeee. It was really hard to type that post title. How can my little 8lb 2oz bundle of baby be a 20lb almost one year old?!?!

Tessa, at 11 months, you:

*weigh about 20 or 21 lbs.

*are around 27 inches. I think.

*in a size 3 diaper still. I think we're almost ready to go to size 4!

*are wearing size 4 and 5 shoes. You have VERY thick feet. I see shoes being a problem in the future!

*almost completely off of formula!! Daddy's wallet says thank you! We've been slowly mixing your formula with milk and you're doing great! I think we're going to have a MUCH harder time replacing your bottle with a sippy. You like sippys, but you looooove a bottle at night.

*wear size 12 to 24 month clothes--depends on the brand

*have the craziest bed head! It's hilarious! Usually one side is really matted and the other side is really curly and frizzy!

*starting to get a little pickier about what you eat. For awhile, you were eating everything we set in front of you, but lately, you've been spitting out a lot more and turning your nose up at things. I'm hoping you don't get toooo picky! You love having a spoon in your hand and will use it for awhile and then throw it on the ground and use your hands.

*trying your hand at the stairs. You can go up them pretty well but you get so excited about the fact that you climb them that you start to slip. You do okay going down them as long as we're holding your hand.

*make the funniest faces! Your expressions are so cute and.......expressive!

*sleeping like a champ! I'm SURE now that I've written this, it will change, but for the most part, you have been sleeping from about 8:30 or 9pm to 7:30 or 8am. That is the BIGGEST blessing to mommy! I'm terribly grumpy when I'm tired and you have been a pretty great sleeper since you were born! You went through a spell where you were waking up around 5am and staying awake, but that seems to have stopped. Thank you!

*are an expert walker now. I honestly think you're steadier on your feet than your brother! You don't fall hardly at all and have gotten better about looking where you're going instead of just walking into things!

*get very proud of yourself when you get in the fridge, climb up on something you shouldn't be on and get to play with your brother's toys! You LOVE having free reign over his stuff if he's outside or not there!

*are ornery as sin! This............

is the face that says you're getting ready to do something naughty. I wish it wasn't so cute cause it's REALLY  hard to get onto you when you smile like that!

*Are turning out to be a girly girl! You sit very still when I do your hair. You always want to play in my make-up every morning. I constantly find you playing in your shoe basket and you always hold shoes up and try to put them on your feet. I bought you a dress the other day and showed it to you and you just started laughing and hugging it! I think we have a lot of shopping in our future!

*have a lip tie--I think. My friend was talking about how her son has a gap between his teeth because he has a lip tie and I started thinking about how you had a gap. So I looked....and sure enough. It looks like one to me. Hopefully it won't cause any problems....and hopefully your teeth push together, cause that is a BIIIIIIG gap :)

 *are teething again. You have 8 right now--4 on top and 4 on bottom. Your 9th one is poking through on your right top towards the back. We can always tell when a tooth is coming in. You get SUPER grumpy!

*are fearless. It truly surprises me how ready you are to dive headfirst into things! You have no concept of danger, which scares me a little! You're quite the little spit fire! I'm not looking forward to your teenage years.

*are an open book. We never have to guess what you're thinking because it's written all over your face! I don't know where you get that from.......

*have gotten a lot more sensitive. Now that you realize when you're getting in trouble, your feelings get very hurt and your whole face puckers up and the crocodile tears start falling. It makes it really hard to discipline you because I always feel so bad when you start crying.

*are saying mama consistently and have said dada and baba a few times. I'm okay if you hold of on talking for awhile......your brother talks enough for both of you!

I can't believe you'll be one next month! That is so crazy to me. I feel like you were just born yesterday! Where does the time go? I love watching you grow and develop into a little girl. Your personality is so sweet and funny. You love an occasional cuddle and always snuggle up with me when you're falling asleep at night. I feel so thankful that you're my daughter, Tess! I love you!

Swimeen!!

I had it all planned and on the hottest day of the week. I wanted to take the kids swimming (or swimmeen, as Tommy calls it). I was so excited to get Tessa in the water and see if she's as fearless in the pool as she is on land.

It started off well..............


Nick had to work Saturday morning, but he got off around noon and we'd been planning all week to head to the pool when he got off. I took a  looooot smidge bit longer getting home from my mom's house and garage saling than planned, so I didn't get home until around 3pm. We hurried to get the car all packed up and the kids changed into their suits.

Tessa was all dressed up in her bikini (she wasn't sleeping here, just blinking!)

Tommy was so excited to go swimmeen!!

About 2 minutes into the drive, we ran into this............

 Yeah. That's the perfect swimming weather right there. But it was still really hot and there was no thunder and lightening, so we decided to keep driving to the pool in hopes the weather would pass us by.

One more minute later, I turned around to ask Tommy a question and..............

Needless to say, we turned around and went home. Oh well. There's always tomorrow......

Belle of the (soft)ball

It's that time of year--SUMMER TIME! Which means my sweet little niece, Isablle (who is no longer little) is playing softball! We've been trying to get to a game for the last few weeks but it seems like something always come up. It finally worked out that we got to go see her play last night.

Isabelle has always been the princess of the family. She has always loooved princesses and dressing up and nail polish and lip gloss and dancing. She's a girly-girl (MY kind of girl :). But in the last year or so, it seems like she's started branching out and trying new things. I was so excited to see her play. We were running a little late, so when we walked up to the game, she was already on the field.

I swear to you, she looked like she was 15 years old. It almost made me cry, seeing the girl she's become from the tiny little infant she was when I first met her.

And folks, she is DARN good at softball! She was on third base and she was on top of it.

I love watching baseball (in person, not on TV--just to clear that up), but it's even better when you're watching someone you know. So watching Isabelle play made for the perfect evening. I was worried about my kiddos and it being too hot, but there was a little bit of wind that made it nice and cool and the kids had plenty to keep them entertained.

Tessa Grace was ready to watch the game with her shades on (they're actually Tommy's but heaven knows she doesn't want anything that isn't his)!

There was gravel around the whole park and Tommy and Tessa spent almost the whole time playing with the rocks. Tommy would put them in a cup and then throw them (we had a talk about how you don't throw gravel in a small space filled with lots of people--not good) or pour them back out. He did that for about 30 minutes. Tessa was trying to eat the rocks, of course. I was trying really hard to ignore the fact that there were sunflower seed shells mixed in with the gravel they were playing with. Gross. But whatever.

Tommy spent the rest of the time watching the game from Daddy's shoulders. Tessa hung out with Mommy in my chair. I was surprised at how long she sat still.

This is my other sweet niece, Mackayla. She helped keep the kids entertained. She loves her baby cousins!

And I have absolutely nothing to say about this picture except this girl will always let you know EXACTLY how she feels with her facial expressions.

It was so much fun to be there and get to watch Belle play. Her team is peppy and full of spirit! I love their pink helmets and neon socks and chants that they do.

You know those moments where you look at a kid and wonder when they stopped being a baby? You think, "Wasn't it just yesterday that she was small enough to fit in my arms and rock her?" And then you look at them now and realize they're almost as tall as you and their legs are long and skinny and they're trasitioning into being a gangly GROWN pre-teen? Yeah, I had several of those last night. Miss Belle is just so beautiful and grow up and mature. She reads books and wears tall, crazy, mis-matched socks. She plays softball and has earrings and is missing a LOT of teeth. Where has the time gone?

We love you, Isabelle Marie! We had a great time watching you play softball and are so proud of the girl you're becoming!

The B Word

Well, it happened. He said his first cuss word. And believe it or not, it was because he was repeating me, not Nick. Which I NEVER thought would be the case! But let me explain....cause maybe that will make me look a tiny bit like less of a bad mom if you know the whole story.

I was SO over work the day it happened. I was tired, left work with a million things that I knew I'd have to come back to tomorrow and I was ready to be home. And I may or may not have been on day 1 of my visit from mother nature. But I had found a recipe to use these left over wonton wrappers we had, so I was excited to get home and make it. You can use them to make ravioli! Genius! I had stopped at the store just to buy ricotta cheese, I borrowed a little bit of italian sausage from Gambino's and headed home to make some home made ravioli for the hubs and kids. I was really excited because I like making semi-home made meals for my family that aren't too complicated.

Nick was already home when I got back from picking up the kids, so I started dinner right away. I was already a little frustrated (not at Nick, just in general) because the kitchen sink had dishes in it (which I HATE, but we had run the dishwasher the night before and hadn't had time to unload anything, so all the dirty dishes were in the sink, waiting to be loaded). I like to start off cooking in a clean kitchen and I like to pick up as I go so there's not a huge mess in the end. But I was in a hurry to get dinner started, so I left all the dishes where they were. Then I realized we had NO clean dishes in the cabinets (they were all in the dishwasher), but rather than taking the time to unload it like I should have done, I got the dishes out as I needed them. The ravioli was simple enough to make--but I somehow ended up using 12 plates and bowls to get it all put together, so there were dirty dishes all over the counter as I was working. Sigh.

I should've stopped right there. But I didn't.

I just mixed some ricotta cheese, parmesan, garlic and italian seasoning and spooned some of it onto the middle of the wonton wrapper. Then you use water to seal the edges of the wontons so the filling stays in. At least, that's what the Pioneer Woman said to do. So that's what I did.

But the Pioneer Woman made it look so easy! Just slip the raviolis into boiling water and let them stay in for 3 minutes and then VOILA! The perfect ravioli! What the Pioneer Woman DIDN'T say is if you don't use a crap ton of water to seal the raviolis and actually fold the edges up (resulting in a very ugly ravioli), the filling will burst out into your boiling water and make it look disgusting and VERY unappetizing. She also didn't say that they would all stick together, forming one gigantic morphed ravioli that has no filling so is really just a bunch of wet wonton wrappers clumped together.

*disclaimer--as I'm typing this, it really doesn't seem as dramatic and hectic as it FELT that night*

So in the midst of trying to dismember the huge clump of wet wonton wrappers, I got super irritated that my semi home made raviolis were not working out and bummed that my nice dinner for the hubs and kids was being ruined. Plus, there was ricotta cheese and italian sausage floating all around the boiling water, so I was going to have to start over by re-heating a clean pot of water to do the rest of the raviolis in. It was at that point that my thoughts flew out of my mouth. I maaaay have said in a very mocking tone something along the lines of, "Nick, it's not working! The women on pinterest make things look SO easy....crazy b*tches."

Now. Let's stop for a moment and try to get around the fact that I said the b-word. I didn't mean it. And as soon as it came out of my mouth, I felt bad for saying it. And I thought I had said it much quieter than I said the rest of the sentence. But apparently, I did not. Because no more than 5 seconds later, I heard from the living room the tiniest little voice say, "Yeah, dose dazy ditches!"

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I think I did a little of both. Nick was having a VERY hard time holding in his chuckles and started saying random words to distract himself from what was happening so he'd stop laughing. Tommy (luckily) had no idea what he'd just said and quickly forgot about the whole thing and went on to something else.

To anyone who reads my blog (IF anyone reads it besides my husband--hi honey!), please don't think I'm a horrible mom! Although I truly felt like one at that moment. I never dreamed I would be the one teaching him his first curse word.

Needless to say, I'm trying to watch my words and keep my frustration under control (I've found the best way to do that is to stay out of the kitchen, so it's kind of a win-win ;). I asked God's forgiveness and I know I've got it, but I'll never forget the gut-sinking feeling when I heard my child say something that never should have left his mouth just because he heard his mommy say it.

We are truly examples (good ones or bad ones, I haven't quite figured out yet!). I will work harder to show him and Tessa how they SHOULD be living. We are the only things they have to model their lives after, so I'm going to do my best to show them how to live as God's child. And thank God He gives us grace daily, becaus I obviously SO need it!

From the mouths of babes

My son is cracking me up lately. His language skills are really coming along and he says so many things that I can't believe come out of his mouth! His little personality is starting to shine, too. You can tell a general idea of how they're going to be pretty early on, but once they can talk...yeah. You get the idea REAL fast of what you're going to have on your hands for the next several years.

*The other night, Nick gave Tommy a cookie and I said, "What about mommy? Do I get a cookie?" He said, "NO!" I pretended to be sad, so he ran over to me and said, "Otay mom, you just can have a wittle bit." Then he stuck his finger out so I could lick the crumbs off of them. Wow. How generous :)

*I'll say, "Come here, baby!" or , "I love you baby boy!" He crosses his arms and says, "Me not a baby! Me Nommy James! Me a BIG boy!"

*He can make anything an insult by adding the word "head" to anything. I'll tell him he's silly and he says, "NO! You a silly head!" I say he's a nerd and he says, "YOU a newd head!!" He also likes to call us mac n' cheese heads. He thinks it's the ultimate insult.

*Tommy is not allowed to say the word hush. We had gotten to the point where he was telling us to hush or Tess to hush, so we banned the word from the house since it's basically a nice way of saying shut up :) However, he started saying this word, "Hoosies!" He would say it constantly and we could NOT figure out what it meant. Until we payed attention to the context of it. He was saying it when he was mad--and we finally figured out it's his subsitution for hush. He thought he was outsmarting us all because then he could tell us to shut up without getting in trouble because he was saying hoosies instead. It worked until we figured it out ;) Now "hoosies" is banned as well.

*He has always--ALWAYS--called me mom. Never mama or mommy. It was just mom. Until lately. Now he says, "Hi, MomMAY!!" I love it.

*I've started to not enjoy driving so much with him. Everything we pass, he says, "What dat is, Mommay? What IS dat?" I'll say, "It's a house." And he almost always says, "No, it not a house, Mommay!" So if he thinks he knows what everything is, then why does he ask EVERY time?!? Drives me nuts :)

*I DO love when we go through Towanda every day to go to Brooke's and he sees our church and says, "Dere's our duwch!" Makes my heart happy that he wants to be at church!

*He hears me talking baby talk to Tessa or to our baby chickens and he mimicks it. It's hiLARious! His voice gets really high and squeaky and his little face scrunches up and he just looks so cute while he's doing it. He'll say in his baby voice to Tessa, "Hi sis!! You so cute!" or he'll say, "Look at me dickdens (chickens)! Oh, HI baby dickdens!!" Love it.

*Sometimes when we ask him a yes or no question, he says, "Um, no." And it's not like a long, drawn out "um." It's like a sarcastic "um" when you're really thinking, "Hell no!" but you don't want to actually say hell. Makes him sound like he's 15.

*The other morning I was putting him in his carseat and held his arm straps out. I said, "Okay, put this arm in.........now put the other arm in." And he said, "Now we do dah hokey dokdie?" I about died laughing! I don't know who taught him the hokie pokey but apparently he likes it!

*He repeats everything we say. Which means we have to be MUCH more careful with our words but also makes for a fun game too! I say hard things like, "Supercalafragalisticexpealidocious" (or however you spell that) and then listen to him try to say it back. Hilarious! We laugh a lot :)

Tommy, you are such a fun loving little boy. You're a little LOT ornery and always make us laugh with the things you say.  It's so much fun to watch you learn and listen to what you come up with!! You are silly and hilarious! We love you!