Catching Up

Well hello again blog-world. I know…long time no post…it’s been brought to my attention several times. Life has been pretty busy the last several weeks. I’ve been out of town for work 25 of the last 35 days. Luckily, I was able to take Beau and the boys with me a couple of times which I’m not normally able to do. I don’t know that I would have made it if not. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a nice break to be gone from time to time but I do miss them terribly when I’m gone. I imagine they tend to think it’s nice to get a break from me as well since I seem to be a little heavier on the discipline than Beau. But anyway...June is always my busiest month so I’m glad to have it behind me.

Let’s see…I guess we can start with Gaines. I can’t believe I haven’t put this on here sooner but Gaines is off oxygen all day long and only gets it at night. Last time I updated, he was still on at naps but now he goes one really long stretch without. We’ve been pretty close to having him tested through the night, but each time he’s come down with a little cold and you can tell he’s not quite ready to give it up all together. Those two sick spells he needed a little help breathing and we were able to put him back on…if we didn’t have oxygen at home, he’d have had to go to the hospital. So…while I am ready to lose it totally, we’ll do it when Gaines is good and ready. And not having it during the day makes life SO much easier. I can’t even begin to tell you how much.

He has such the little personality these days...still plenty of Gaines attitude, but I’m starting to see his sweetness more and more. He LOVES to play with/wrestle with/pick on his brother…I just wish Reed enjoyed it as much as Gaines. He walks around the house calling him all the time, “Ree, Ree, Ree”. I found them this morning with Reed whimpering on the couch and Gaines on top of him laughing. He may be little, but he’s the toughest kid I know. He has been spending a good bit of time in timeout these days. Mostly just testing his boundaries I guess. You can kind of see it in his little eyes. Like, you’ll tell him “no” and he’ll sort of look at you like, “we’ll just see about that”…right before he does whatever he’s not supposed to be doing again. Last night it was banging his head into my face. He thinks it’s funny…my cheekbone and nose will tell you that its not one bit funny.

He is currently seeing a speech therapist twice a week and I can see improvements in his talking. I’ve noticed lately that he’s starting to put two words together, like "bye Ree" or "more please". Now, when I come home in the afternoons he comes running towards me screaming “Mommy, mommy, mommy”. So sweet. He’ll give you a big hug with the tiniest little pat, pat, pat on your back. It's a lot better than him just kind of glancing at you from in front of the tv becuase he doesn't want to miss one minue of Ni Hao Kailan.  FYI...he's also learning to speak a little Chinese thanks to Kailan.  I’d say his favorite word right now is “Whoa!” He gets so excited about things.  Everything is "Whoa!" We are working on saying “Gaines” as right now, whenever he sees a picture of himself (or in a mirror for that matter) he said, “Ree”. He is a total MESS but I wouldn’t have him any other way.

Now Reed…I think it’s a good thing I didn’t type a blog there for a little spell or there might have been some not so pleasant things mentioned on here about that one. I believe that he has turned a corner but he just went through a tough testing his boundaries and my patience phase for a few weeks. Not listening, being defiant and disrespectful…things that are totally not like Reed. I can’t remember what he did but he got a spanking for something recently and he looked at Beau and said through his tears, “But I don’t normally get spankings!” Thankfully, he seems to be back to his old self, for the most part. There was a timeout episode last night for eating his corn with his hands after he’d been instructed to use his fork…but for the most part, he’s acting better.  I didn't even so much care about the corn eating u 

That little joker just has the best week of his life in Disney World. I had some work to do down there but had enough free time on this trip to take Beau and Reed with me. Gaines stayed home (well, with my parents) and while I felt SUPER guilty about it, it was the right thing. He is too little and it was too hot and crowded for him to enjoy it. Also, it let Beau and I spend some time with Reed which was so fun. He’s an awesome little boy. Disney is not quite as magical as I remember, but we had a great time and had so much fun. He and I loved the teacups the best I think…Beau not so much. He sat them out after the first time. We all loved the Thunder Mountain roller coaster that Reed was just barely big enough to ride. Reed is definitely his father’s child and asked for popcorn every time we saw it. He was really so good down there. Oh, he also loved the Pirates ride and LOVED the sword that we let him get. Luckily no one has lost an eye yet. We brought Gaines back a big Mickey Mouse to which he said, “Whoa!” He was so excited to see us…it was precious. He wouldn’t quit hugging us and when Beau went to load the car with his stuff, he climbed in the car and go in his car seat all by himself. He meant we weren’t leaving him again.

Here are a few Reed-isms of late:

“Plenty, Plenty, Please!”

“Mom, you are really pushing my buttons.” –because I was asking him to get dressed for the 400th time.

“Can I have my Silly Puddle, please?”

“Mom, why do mom’s and dad’s don’t have toy’s in their rooms?”

In a public restroom with Beau, the two urninals are being used and there are two stalls. One being used, one not. So they go in the unused stall and Reed says very loudly, “Daddy, it’s really stinky in here” (referring to the man in the next stall). Beau says something along the lines of “ok, lets hurry up” or something and Reed says, “I mean, it’s really, really stinky in here”. Beau said you could hear the guys at the urinal laughing. They got out as fast as they could. On another note, in a different public restroom on the same trip, Beau accidentally opened the restroom door on an older lady using the restroom. Apparently she forgot to lock the door. I find this hilarious and am very thankful that I have boys so that Beau has to handle most of the public bathroom mishaps.

After passing someone that was smoking. “That guy was smoking. That is SO yuck. Mom, if I ever see you smoking I am going to spank your hiney SO hard”. I guess he’s heard that a time or two.

Ok…I guess that’s about it for now. I am really, really, really going to try to keep this thing better updated.

Oh, and Beau and I are fine too.

Love to all,

Brittany