Thursday, August 8, 2013

End Of Summer Ramblings

I've been meaning to write this down for a while and since I'm feeling all sentimental with the back to school activities in full swing, this seemed as good of a time as any.

My sweet Gaines will be going to K4 this fall.  He's a young and small 4 right now so we fully intend to send him to K4 twice.  This will be the equivalent of holding him back a year, but giving him an extra year to prepare for kindergarten.  Anyway...he and I have this conversation every night when I kiss him goodnight.  He grabs my face in his hands and says:
G-"Mommy, your precious"
Me-"No, your precious"
G-"We 'bof' precious"

Makes my night and almost erases any irritation towards him over having to get one last sip of water, or and overwhelming need to go to the bathroom, or him needing to tell me "somefing" along the lines of what he had for lunch that day or something Reed said that he didn't like.

Reed has been back at Little Alfa this summer and its been nice to have the boys at the same place.  He and I have been eating lunch together every Thursday for the last few weeks.  Please note that Gaines has been invited but when I ask him if he wants to eat with us I get a very simple "No".  This last time I asked him why he didn't want to eat with me and Reed and he told me "I just don't want to".  Nice. It hurt my feelings a little at first but Reed and I have such nice lunches together, I got over it pretty quickly.  Reed is big enough now to not cause a scene in front of people I work with everyday (although I did find him stretched out on my boss's couch today when I sent him in to speak while I grabbed something off my desk) and will actually have a little lunch conversation with me.  Today I told him I was worried about Gaines going to Trinity and asked him to watch out for him.  He told me that Gaines would be fine but "he's got to learn to wipe his own hiney".  Agreed.  

Reed will be in real kindergarten this year and I know he's going to do great but I'm going to miss our lunches and how we always share a pack of cookies count the dead worms on the sidewalk from his school to my office.  There were 17 today.  I'm working really hard at being a good boys mom.

Just wanted to get some of this written down.  I hope to be back on here soon with first day of school pictures.

Love to all,

Brittany

Thursday, May 9, 2013

Stream of Thought

I know its been a while but the good news is that I did come back.  When I was last here, Gaines had just recovered from his bout with pneumonia and Beau left town for a week.  After he got back, Reed had a fever virus and the fever virus I thought Gaines had turned out to be the flu...so that was fun.

April was busy with traveling and t-ball and everything else life brings.  We just wrapped up choir and t-ball is  starting to wind down which, even though I enjoy it, will be nice.  Reed's team has done great this year and has a big game tomorrow night against the undefeated team.  They've already beaten us once but it was really close.  I need to get a picture of Reed in his uniform on here.  He's so stinking cute I can't stand it.  He has been in the outfield this year but has gotten to play pitcher a couple of times when they were winning by a good bit.  His hitting has gotten much better and he is one of the fastest on the team.  Beau claims he was the fastest kid in school until the 4th grade so maybe that's where Reed gets it from but knowing Beau now, I have a hard time imagining it.  He's just not much of a runner these days.

I actually don't always give Beau enough credit on here but I really have a great husband.  He cleans up from dinner every night and is the sole dishwasher loader and unloader.  I know this sounds absolutely ridiculous, but sometimes he gets on my nerves when he does my chores.  I know.  I'm crazy.  I guess I just feel like it makes me look bad but really he'd rather fold laundry in the air conditioning and I'd rather be outside piddling in the yard.  This time of year is so nice that its hard for me to stay inside.

Today the boys and I were playing outside before Beau got home and I got to watch Gaines playing a little soccer.  Reed has always been the athlete of the two but now that Gaines is getting older, he's coming into his own.  I've always been a little worried that he might not be good at sports since he seems a little clumsy at times (which I think is a result of the rough start he had) but he wasn't bad today!  He's in a little soccer class at school and he really enjoys it. I think he likes having is own thing like Reed has whatever sport he's playing at the time.  Its crazy but both boys will be on the same soccer team this fall.  That should put Gaines on cloud nine.  He wants to do whatever his brother is doing.  He also just started riding a real bike.  No more tricycle for him.  I am amazed at him doing it.  For a long time I didn't think he'd be able to ride a bike.  He just wasn't getting it and I figured there was some sort of leg issue.

In other Gaines news...he turned 4!  I know...I can't believe it either.  He had a pirate party at the park and had lots of friends there.  It was truly a great day.  I'd been planning it out for a while and it all came together like I wanted...and most importantly he was happy.  It was a good day all around.

I've got more to say but typing on this ipad is beyond infuriating and our computer is dying a slow death so I guess this is all for now.  I'm not even going to proof it so excuse my errors.  I'll try and add pictures next time.

Love to all,

Brittany

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Life On The Outside

Well, we've been enjoying life on the outside for the last few days.  Gaines got out of the hospital last Friday morning.  While he and I were packing up and being processed out, Beau was at the doctor being diagnosed with...you guessed it, viral pneumonia.  He decided that he was not too sick to go into work  or travel across the country the next day.  He was however too sick to take a few breakfast dishes to the kitchen.  But I'm not bitter about it all.

The boys and I ended up having a really nice weekend without him.  I don't say that like it was nice because he was gone...just it was nice in spite of him being gone.  Beau's parents came down to help me out some and we had a nice day.  I got to run a few errands BY MYSELF and we all ate lunch at Chris' Hotdogs downtown.  One of my favorites.  I have a very refined pallete.

After lunch we headed to the zoo.  On the way I got a phone call from my dad...my mom was out of town with my aunt, apparently they have chosen to travel in their retirement which is fine because who really wants an inheritance anyway?

But back to my dad.  He calls and asks where I am.  I tell him on the way to the zoo and ask where he is. He is sitting in my driveway.  He lives an hour and a half away.  Obviously my next question is, "Why didn't you tell me you were coming to town?"

It seems that he didn't decide until that morning to come up and I guess there wasn't enough time on his hour and a half drive to make a call.

I kind of chased a rabbit there but all that to say, my dad met us at the zoo too which suprised the heck out of me because he's never really been a zoo kind of guy but I'm glad he did because the boys and I enjoyed getting to see him.

Man this is getting long and boring.  That afternoon after everyone had left, Reed and I practiced t-ball in the front yeard where I critqued his batting form and had him shaped up in a few swings.  This is hilarious to me as I have never played a sport in my life.  Apparently, I have gotten in to t-ball mode.  I caught myself telling Reed over the weekend that if he wasn't going to practice with all his heart, we just wouldn't practice at all.  What have I become?  I'm the t-ball version of a pageant mom.  Stop. The. Insanity.  

We missed church Sunday morning because I wasn't sure Gaines was ready and without Beau here, it just seemed best to stay home.  It had nothing to do with daylight savings time, a lack of sleep last week and me cringing at the thought of ironing shirts for the boys.  The rest of the day was spent at t-ball practice, getting haircuts running errands and at Mission Friends.  I mentioned something to the boys about what a nice day we'd had and Reed informed me that it was "kind of the worst".  He was quickly reminded that his day had consisted of muffins for breakfast, watercolor painting, tacos for lunch, t-ball practice, popcorn from Target and new fancy practice shirts I decided he needed (the ratty t-shirts were not cutting it).  He has a rude awakening coming if he thought that anything less than a nice day.

Somewhere over the weekend Gaines and I had this conversation.
G-"You happy mama?"
B-"Yes, baby...why?"
G-"Because you were mad".
B-"When was I mad?"
G-"When you make us cwean up our woom."
For the record, I asked them to clean it up once and they ACTUALLY DID IT without me raising my voice or asking multiple times.  I'm afraid they think I am an angry person.  I mean, the nerve of me to ask them to put some toys away.  

Monday brought us back the real world.  I was reminded of Gaines' total disdain for blue jeans with his sobbing refrain of  "I not want to wear bwue jeans" for a full 20 minutes and of Reed's desire to not have the same thing for breakfast "every morning".  We had to make him a little menu so that I would know his breakfast preferences in advance and could keep the breakfast disappointment to a minimum.  Their lives are so hard.

We had a rough week last week but life has been good and we are looking forward to a busy spring.  Thanks for keeping up with us and for all your prayers last week.

Love to all,

Brittany

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Hospital, Brothers and Other Ramblings

Well.  I sure didn't think we'd be checking into the hospistal for the whole week when we got here on Monday but that seems to be the plan.  I was laughing with Beau today about some comments we made over the weekend about how thankful we were that Gaines was sick over the weekend so we didn't have to take time off of work.  Ha!  I swear God has a sense of humor.



We had a rough night Monday night as Gaines ended up needed four liters of oxygen to keep his sats up but he seems to be improving now and the doctor today told me that he wasn't worried about him at all, but that  his little lungs just need some extra time to get over this.  So...we've been here.  And its been fine.  Good nurses, lots of time to snuggle with my boy and catch up on back episodes of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.



Today we followed doctor's orders to walk the halls and ended up at the nursery window looking at the new babies.  Gaines asked if we could take one home.  Uh....no.  They aren't puppies.  Not that we are in the market for a puppy either.  We have all the living things that I can keep up with right now.

Speaking of puppies though, its funny to me that both boys seem to really think that Jack is their brother.  If I ever mention our family of four or something along those lines they'll correct me and say five.  Or, "Uh, mom, aren't you forgetting someone?  Jack?" looking at me like I'm a total idiot for forgetting my oldest son.  I'm guessing at some point they'll figure that out.  Hope so anyway.

The two human brothers are missing each other this week.  They really do love each other.  Reed claims to have other best friends but Gaines will love on Reed sometimes and say "Best fwiends".  He still doesn't say "r"s and "l"s well but I just can't bring myself to really correct him.  I love to hear him say, "I win and you wose!  You the woser".  Probably won't be so cute when he's twelve but for now I think its ok.  And yes, we are working on being graceful winners....among many, many other things.  

The boys have been into temporary tatoos lately.  Reed likes to put them semi-normal places but last week Gaines asked for a Perry (of Fineus & Ferb fame) on his hiney.  So I had him pull his pants down and I stuck on on there one on it.  It was Friday and I didn't see why not.  We'll just say that Beau was not impressed...to say the least.  It stayed there all weekend and I got a serious talking to on Sunday night when he realized it was still there.  If anyone that may have helped Gaines in the restroom at church on Sunday is reading this, I apologize for the platypus on his hiney.

I'm working on figuring out the picture thing on my ipad.  I hope y'all enjoyed those three pictures on the last post because they took me a WHILE to make work.  Blogger seems kind of finicky about them plus I'm trying to figure out how sync ipad, iphone and computer pictures all together.  Technology is hard.

Ok, I think I may be tired enough to sleep on my luxury cot.  And by luxury I mean it does not also double as a chair.

Love to all,

Brittany

Monday, March 4, 2013

Back By Popular Demand-Or The Half-Hearted Request Of A Few People I Know

So, if I sick child is a good enough reason to start a blog, it seems to be a good enough reason to start one back.  It also seems to be a good enough reason to eat my weight in Reese's cups that I brought to the hospital for Gaines.

My little Gainesy has landed himself in the hospital again.  Its certainly not our first visit but it has been a while since he's been here sick.  We are here today because of a viral something with flu-like symptoms that seems to have turned into pneumonia.  The patient is sleeping now and I'm about bored out of my mind.  How was I ever on bed-rest for 6 weeks?  Hopefully we are just here for a night or two.  I don't love the hospital but I can manage if it makes my boy feel better.


Other than this little hiccup, life has been going very well.  Gaines started school in April of 2012 and is doing really well.  He is making friends and seems to be quite the ladies man.  His teacher told me I should probably stock up on Valentines for next year while they are on sale because all the girls love Gaines.  Personally, I think its because of his superior genes...but his teacher thinks that the girls find him less gross than the other boys.  No offense to the other boys' mamas...Gaines has never really liked to be dirty and with the exception of wiping his hands on his shirt instead of a napkin, seems to keep himself tidy.  I am happy to report that I am still his number one girl...or so I'm telling myself.

My Reed is also doing well.  He started big school this past fall.  He's in K4 but it is definitely a big school...K4-12th grade.  I think he really likes it but does ask from time to time to take a day off.  Apparently he has to "learn...and color...and cut stuff all day".  I really feel for him.

He has also started playing sports and is loving it.  We just finished basketball which I must admit is not my favorite.  To me it is chaos and not Reed's best sport.  I loved t-ball and soccer and thankfully so did he.  Really hope he eventually chooses those over basketball.  Soccer is fun but t-ball is serious and has taken me a little getting used to.  I complained a LOT last year during the 3 practices a week and special uniform pants and new cleats and bats, and glove and bat bag.  I probably uttered, "I mean they are four" 100 times but all that changed after the first game.  I was into it.  I'm just a touch competitive and they really keep score.  Beau likes to say that they umpire had to ask me to settle down a time or two but that is not true at all.  But if he'd use a pair of glasses every now and then I might not have to point out his missed calls.  Kidding of course.  I'm a perfect lady at t-ball.

If I'm going to get back into this I'll try and start remembering funny stuff to report.  One quick thing that comes to mind that still makes me laugh when I think about it.  We sent Reed to get dressed for whatever and he called his daddy to his room for help.  When Beau got there he said, "Dad, I've got some weird news about my underwear".  No telling what was going through Beau's head.  I can't even remember what it was but it was nothing gross...I think he'd been wearing it inside out or something but it still makes me laugh when I think about the "weird news".

Seems like I've been typing a while now so I better finish it up.  Gaines is sure to wake up any minute and need his mama to love on him...or unplug his 3 lines and take him to the bathroom.  Being a mom is so glamorous.  Do please keep my sweet boy in your prayers.  I hate to see him feeling so badly.

I'll try to be back more often,

Love to all,


Brittany