miss scarlett

upchuckarama

we had visitors from tuscaloosa this week! we were so excited to have caroline, sydney and john evan(or john enyun are reagan calls him) come to play with us.
we went to the children's art museum and ran around and looked at exhibits.

reagan's impression of me in the morning.

john evan is going to be playing linebacker for the crimson tide in a few years. he is a tank!

wonderful caroline!!!

reagan is so skinny that none of his pants fit him in the waist. but because he is so tall i have to buy 3T to ensure that he isn't wearing booty shorts. while he was running around playing his pants dropped to his ankles. i was laughing so hard that i could hardly take these pictures. let alone help him pull his pants up!
reagan saw that i was going to be no help to him so he went to caroline for a quick pants pull up.


what's up chuck?
it's time for another edition of...........MAMA DRAMA!!! not for the faint of heart!
last week we drove to waycross and savannah for the weekend. it was our first trip with scarlett grace as an out of the womb passenger. it started out uneventful enough. then about two minutes from the alabama/georgia state line, reagan starts tossing his cookies. projectile vomiting all over himself. poor thing. we had to pull over and try and clean him off with diaper wipes and mcdonald's napkins. a few more miles down the road he starts throwing up again and we stop at a fred's and buy some towels to wrap around him and his carseat. a few more miles down the road, and they are no longer for protecting against vomit but they become receptacles for it. it was the only thing we could do for him. by time we arrived in waycross, reagan had thrown up 10 times. mimi susu administers a suppository and for the first time in his little life, reagan requests his diaper be put back on. and then he drinks some juice and promptly barfs on me.
the next morning, we think that reagan is feeling better because he wakes up snd requests chocolate milk. and then he throws that up. he must have finally gotten everything out of his system because he was fine. and a good thing too, because thomas and i were both too sick to take care of him. i'm up all night sick the next night. silly me, i thought i was over it and i went to church. as soon as we leave, i promptly throw up in the church parking lot. how many of you can claim that feat? and i'm not even pregnant! soon we pack up to leave for alabama and i give one final send off of our weekend trip, right in my mother-in-law's bushes. reagan excitedly exclaimed "bye bye pancakes!" indeed!
so the grossness subsides for a couple of days. i am thinking that we have finally gotten through this illness. our wonderful friends caroline, sydney and john evan come to see us. we decided to go to the YMCA and go for a swim. swimming is one of reagan's most favorite things ever. he was ecstatic! before scarlett was born we went at least 3 times a week. this was our first time back in 8 weeks! he was so excited that when he thought he was getting dropped off in childcare instead of getting to go swim, he threw up on me and the rug in the lobby. and then he really didn't get to go swim. this was one of those times when i looked around and was absolutely grateful we are moving out of state.

one last time, just for fun. then this morning, thomas comes and tells me that reagan threw up in his bed last night. it was all over his toys and pillows and blankets and he had slept on it all night. being a mother is fantastic. my life is so glamorous. please don't hate me. you too can have a life this dreamlike!
we went to the doctor today to get to the bottom of this illness, before it got to the bottom of us. i guess gastroenteritis can stay latent in your system for a while. thankfully mylanta clears it up!

ocho

eight things you may not know about me:
1. i believe sherbet is health food.
2. i too lied on my third grade eye exam just to get glasses. what a prize that turned out to be.
3. being pregnant is not my favorite thing in the world. i actually don't like it much at all. but delivering the baby is not hard at all for me. reagan took 20 minutes and scarlett took less than 10.
4. i still struggle with inner turmoil about how old i am. 27 isn't old, i just get confused about where i should shop! do i stick out like a sore thumb in charlotte russe??? but there is no WAY i am old enough to shop at talbots!
5. riding the school bus was a traumatic experience for me. being a deathly shy child, finding a place to sit everyday was nerve-wracking! thank goodness for assigned seating! and the naughty things kids do!!! no thanks! i will drive my children to school everyday. they can develop strength and backbone somewhere else.
6. in junior high and high school i never went to swimming type activities without wearing shorts over my swimsuit. i was too self-conscious. and dumb. i just needed to get over myself!
7. i think i should have been a dentist, a dermatologist or an anesthiesiologist. those professions fascinate me. and you don't hear about too many dental, dermotological or anesthiesiological emergencies pulling you away from your bed in the middle of the night.
8. the second "sequel" to gone with the wind comes out november 6th. fo' real. it is called rhett butler's people and you know i will be first in line for that. from what i have read it is rhett's point of view and history. should prove interesting. i know this was supposed to be about me, but this important topic has been pressing on my brain lately.

skillz

it's hard for me to believe that scarlett is already 5 weeks old! the time has flown by. everyone in the house has acquired new "skillz" in the past 5 weeks.

dad
1. wrangling 2 children in church while i lead music or play piano

mom
1. lifting reagan out of his bed while nursing scarlett
2. navigating a jumbo double stroller around public places

reagan
1. "helping" mom change diapers
2. "reading" his potty book and sitting on the potty
3. stirring his milk and depositing the spoon in the sink

scarlett
1. sleeping through the night. seriously. she has done it 3 times now and all other nights she only gets up once
2. almost smiling


meatball
1. ignoring 2 kids

my favorite grumpy face.
by now all y'all know that reagan isn't into wearing pants. and the black blob is meatball. he didn't want to get in picture.

cute baby. slouching, bedraggled mom.

scarlett at 5 weeks
my preemie reagan at 4 weeks. what a difference being born full term makes!

31 never looked so good!

happy birthday thomas! you've come a long way baby!!!

copycat copycat

reagan the raccoon...
reagan is our little copycat. he mimics all sorts of things that thomas and i do. a short list:
1. applying mascara
2. saying "nuts!" or "oh crap!"(we're going to have to eliminate that from our vocabulary.
3.putting his contact lenses in.)
4. shaving his face.
5. stirring his drinks.
6. dipping all his different foodstuffs in ketchup.
7. drinking crystal light.
8. berating meatball.
9. making the bed.
10. brushing my hair or his hair.
11. applying deodorant and lotion.
12. saying "oooh, close!" when shooting a basket.
13. breakdancing on the floor while watching the doodlebops, or the "bops" as he calls it.
14. holding the baby.
15. opening the dishwasher putting the (often still dirty)silverware away.

as far as being the mother of two children, it is going pretty well. i was quite nervous about being able to manage this feat. scarlett is a very very good baby so that helps quite a lot. she is almost a complete opposite of reagan. i was so overwhelmed and exhausted with reagan that i thought we would be a one child family. thankfully i was blessed with a baby that REALLY likes to eat so breastfeeding has been no problem, except with keeping up with her pace. i affectionately call her piglet. she is a great sleeper too. she only wakes up twice a night to eat and immediately goes back to sleep. i did attempt a short trip to the mall that included a ride on the carousel. of course i completely overestimated my maternal abilities and i wanted to cry all through lunch at the food court, especially after the spilling of a large bottle of chocolate milk on reagan's pants and scarlett spitting up most of her bottle on me. but we survived and eventually they will both grow up and become productive citizens. hopefully.

one thing i have discovered since becoming a mother is that perfect strangers love to give advice. so i have learned to lie. about most anything. i find it is perfectly acceptable for me to tell people that don't matter that my child is fine, he/she never throws tantrums, eats everything on his/her plate, crawled at 3 months and walked at 6, has shown a propensity for speaking in full sentences at one year and has never EVER needed a perfect stranger in the line at sam's club to scold them for bad behavior. that is my job thank you very much!

list of things i would like to say to people who needlessly give me advice:

1. yes, i know she is only two weeks old, but i have too much to do to stay at home and cloister her from all the germs in the world.
2. he doesn't want to be held by you because you are a stranger, that doesn't mean there is something wrong with him.
3. yes, i am aware he is yelling my name over and over again. if i could stop it i would.
4. no, pacifiers do not give you orthodontic problems. but you might have some after i punch you in the mouth.
5. she's a girl for crying in the night! she's wearing PINK!
6. just because we have a boy and a girl does not mean we are "done". i don't see how that is your business anyway, mrs. walmart checker!
7. yes, all of our clothes have stains on them. we are not blind. we are just busy.
8. you're kidding, my son is running down the aisles of the grocery store? goodness, your children must have always walked in straight silent lines. please teach me how to do that!
9. yes, i know that she has no shoes on. it is freaking july in alabama!

cinqo de yearo, july 9, 2007

this post is a little late, but i have been a little occupied. on monday, we celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary. here are some photos from our wedding so that you can remember what we used to look like, back in the day when we were carefree and silly.

our engagement photo, also known as the best hair day of my life.

a short and incomplete list of reasons why thomas is a great husband, in no particular order:
1. he works hard, really hard.
2. he makes funny jokes. sometimes i am the only one that gets them, but i think they are hilarious. like the invisible fence joke, that still kills me!
3. he is a great support in the delivery room. both literally and emotionally. i can't imagine getting an epidural without him to lean on.
4. he knows how to fix things.
5. he says really nice things to me, even in the morning when i am ugly and scowling at everything.
6. he is sooper smart.
7. he goes out of his way to be everyone's friend.
8. he makes darn fine homemade ice cream.
9. he does all the driving on road trips. like i said, he is very smart.
10. he lets me give him fashion advice.
11. he is smart with money.
12. he gives great birthday, anniversary, christmas, whatever presents.
13. he can name all 9 justices on the supreme court.
14. he rode a scary bus at 3am in mexico to a drugstore to buy pepto bismol for me while he was VERY sick himself.
15. he watches my silly tv shows with me and sometimes even feigns interest.
16. he has gone to the store to buy me embarassing but neccesary hygiene products. not just tampons.
17. he loves his kids. once, while on his lunch hour and dressed in a suit, he ran down several city blocks pushing reagan in a stroller just so reagan could see the tail end of the rodeo parade.
18. he mows the lawn in ridiculous southern heat.
19. when i am pushing out babies, he sleeps on that horrible couch/bed they have in my room, just to be with me.
20. he tolerates my horrible attempts at speaking spanish. see post title.
21. he tastes all of my food experiments. even the bad ones.

a scarlett grace pictorial retrospective

the night before

5am, june 28th

about 20 minutes old

is the epidural still on?

proud papa

reagan was a little apprehensive at first...

...but then he warmed up to her.