Thoughts from a Storytelling Mommy

This Week

2012-01-31T21:52:00.004-06:00

Evidence that Colin is brilliant.

The above picture is ~~disgusting~~ not exactly attractive, I know. Yes, that is a bath rug and yes, that is playdough stuck to it in various locations. But that is beside the point (if you are able to pretend you don't see the playdough). We usually eat dinner while sitting at the kitchen counter, where I have bar stools arranged for seating. Colin has never been comfortable sitting in the stools and recently he began pulling up toy bins and ottomans in order to reach the counter and stand up to eat. He actually eats much better if he can stand, so I haven't minded the switch...with the small exception of how easily he can slip off his makeshift step stools. None of them are designed to hold his weight and our ottoman even has wheels! I told him that I would be on the lookout for a more acceptable solution and saw this little cheapo stool at Hobby Lobby yesterday for the lofty price of $4.99. I gave it a shot and Colin quickly pointed out to me that he didn't feel safe and that it was "too slippery". We stuck the stool in his playroom and went about our business. When I called Colin to the table tonight, he headed for his bathroom. I wasn't paying much attention as I was plating food and when I went to serve Colin, he was standing there with a huge grin on his face. I looked down to see the giant bathmat with his stool on top. He said, "Look, Mom! It won't slip at all anymore! We can just use it this way." I do not have a CLUE how he thought of this on his own. He must have noticed that the stool was more stable on the carpet in his playroom and then decided to try out the bath rug variation. All I know is that we never said a word about it and he figured it out on his own. Hence the ultra classy picture. I love Colin. Here are more lovely shots from our week:

Colin and his kitties

Colin on top of his "mountain". The view from the top is always best.

DJ Jazzy Colin

This week has been all about Pinterest - I am on one of my kicks again. I have so many projects that I want to take on and I knocked out this easy one first. I made custom dry erase boards for the kitchen using two cheap frames and some scrapbook paper. It's awesome! I have to write myself big visual notes constantly and I usually use a sheet of note paper and stick it on the counter where I can see it. I have come close to hanging dry erase boards in the past, but they are so ugly and my kitchen is right in the middle of things. This is already working perfectly! The frames just happened to fit nicely under our family picture and I think they look super cute. It will be fun to switch the paper our for holidays! I think they are a bit plain as of yet, but now that I see them hanging, I am planning to add some cute lettering inside the frame. Stay tuned! It's an easy start - I have a bunch of cool projects planned for the playroom that are going to be much more work, but I am excited to hone some new skills. I am even planning to tackle some sewing - like with a machine - but I am nervous about it. I have never considered myself crafty in the least bit. The only exception would be my odd ability to write pretty letters, but I don't think that counts. I have talked myself into giving this crafty thing a try because 1) my mom is excellent at making her own awesome decorations and 2) I never thought I would be a good cook and now it is my passion. So I suppose even an old dog can learn some new tricks. :-)

Chalna actually crafts.

January Stuff

2012-01-26T11:33:00.000-06:00

A very well mannered lunch date at La Madeline

A random update of random things on a random Thursday seems to be in order. January is it's usual self...totally lacking in Christmas cheer, but here nonetheless. I have been feeling rather blah for the last couple of weeks, but nothing out of the ordinary. I have never been a big fan of this month. :-) The good news is that it's almost over! I am feeling a burst of energy at the moment while I contemplate how much glitter I can use for Colin's class Valentine party and gearing up for a vacation to the cabins in Oklahoma with literally every single one of our best friends. AWESOME!

This guy is the best lunch date ever!

A handsome boy at school

Colin is blowing me away at the moment in all sorts of ways. It seems like he has changed overnight again and that he is much older and wiser right now than he was even last month at this time. We have the most amazing conversations and I wish almost daily that someone was over my shoulder with a video camera to document the unbelievable things he says. We added a third day on to his school week when we got back from Christmas break and it was the best thing we have ever done. Only 6 children attend school in his class on Fridays, so we added that day to his schedule. His teacher reported back after only his second Friday that he is a completely different child. He loves the tiny group and the back and forth that he gets to have with his teacher and the other students. He has 23 kids in class on the other two days, so this is a huge difference and one that is suiting him extremely well. He told me that "Fridays are peaceful" and "I wish it could be Friday every day!". Bless his heart. Any child on earth would do better with a small teacher to student ratio like that, but Colin REALLY thrives in that environment. It makes me long for a giant trust fun so that I could send him to private school forever.

After Mrs. Courtney reported to me that Colin was not interacting with the other children at recess and only wanted to play with her, I told Colin's therapist about the situation. Courtney was giving Colin obstacle course like things to do (run to that fence and then gather up 5 rocks and then run back to me) in an effort to get him moving during their outdoor time and not just talking to her. When I mentioned this to his therapist, she popped right in with the idea of Courtney taking another child of similar temperament and asking that kiddo to do the tasks with Colin. Sheri thought that teaming him up with another child would help him create a relationship that he was struggling to do on his own. Well, she is brilliant because it worked perfectly!!! I feel so blessed that we have a teacher who is willing to try new things and had no problem implementing Sheri's advice. She tried it immediately and asked Gabriella (who Colin already clearly liked) to join in. They played that whole recess and have been best buddies ever since! Courtney was excited to tell me about the success and has reported back that they play together all the time now. And - the BEST part - Colin told me on Monday that when they went outside to play, Presley asked Gabriella to play with her. Presley is one of those girls who doesn't want to play with boys and won't include Colin. (Girls will be girls, after all!) Gabriella said, "No, thanks. I am going to play with Colin." Oh, melt my heart and soul right there!! I could just kiss that girl!!! Colin was puffed up and grinning from ear to ear when he told me this and I had to hide my face because I teared up right on the spot. That precious girl has no idea what that moment did for Colin, but it certainly did a lot. He talks about her constantly and refers to her as his best friend, which he has never done with a school friend before. He has already informed me that he is making her "a special Valentine that is not Star Wars and has extra hearts and stickers" and also told me that, "We have to stick the stickers on carefully because Gabriella might cry if they came off and I DO NOT want to make Gabriella cry!". I hope she doesn't break his heart right away. ;-)

Colin and his best girl, Evi

This month has also arrived with another big change for Colin - reading and writing. He has always struggled with his grasp, ambidextrous issues (switching back and forth constantly without favoring a hand) and low tone in his arms. We still go to bi-weekly OT for this, but he has never been interested in writing and is very awkward with his grip. He is a perfectionist and never likes doing something he isn't automatically good at. Therapy is clearly working all the way around because out of the blue, his skills have jumped leaps and bounds. He writes his name on everything now and practices all the time. It looks great!! He is clearly proud of this accomplishment and is constantly asking to play with his markers and workbooks, which is new and amazing. He used to throw his markers across the room when the "C" in his name didn't look right to him and now he sits and happily writes the whole thing. He doesn't even get upset when part of it doesn't go right - like running out of room and not spacing properly to complete a word. He just shrugs it off now, which is a huge step for the little man. He also loves to sound out words around the house and figure out how they are spelled and can get the first letter of almost any word figured out on his own by sounding it out. Today's exception was "knob". He was pretty mad when I told him there was a such thing as a silent K. ;-) This interest in letters and words is brand spanking new and brings me so much joy. As the only "literary/artistic/math sucks" leaning member of this family, it gave me a sigh of relief. Ha! I think he is going to be reading soon, honestly!

My son, the genius baker.

Also going in full force this month is Colin's intense obsession with all things Star Wars. He now owns all 6 films on Blu-Ray, as well as Star Wars underwear, pajamas, shirts and shoes. He has the light saber (thanks, Mimi!) and tons of the Lego stuff, too. He loooooves it. His favorite of all the films is "The New Hope" and he watches it from start to finish constantly. He loves the Storm Troopers, Darth Vader and Obi Wan Kenobi (which is Oki-One-Benobi when he says it). I can't get over how he isn't scared during any of the movies...you just never know with this kiddo! Jer is loving this turn of events, let me tell you. :-) Here are a few more snapshots from our month...

Super cool dude and a dog

Colin in his fort with Enzo and Evi (the black heap on the chair) :-)

Fine fort workmanship for a January day. Colin dictated the sign to me. ;-)

My latest creation - polenta with garlicky swiss chard and olive oil fried eggs!

Lastly, as a note that actually does not involve my son, I am heavy into my cooking these days. I have been trying to branch out and try new techniques and push my skill level and I am having the BEST time. That is a whole other post, but suffice it to say that I am still in love with all things food related. :-) And there is your random January update post!

My Shadow

2012-01-13T11:52:00.000-06:00

Colin. He is gifted. He is brilliant. He is funny (if you like knock jokes that don't make sense, like I do). He is having a hard time making friends at school, although he doesn't know it yet. The teachers can't get him to play with the other kids at recess...he only wants to play with the conglomeration of adults trying, no doubt in vain, to get a moment of peace in the Texas sunshine. I like to think this is because he is way too smart for a bunch of 4 year olds. :-) Colin is hard to explain, although I have been muddling through it on this blog since he was 6 months old. He sees an awesome therapist who is doing a great job with him. He loves school. He makes the most hysterical faces and comes up with the most brilliant things to play. He is loving in the extreme and he is my shadow. Literally.

Sometimes, I forget that he is different. I keep deleting the word "different" because everyone is different and I just hate that word, but for the sake of making sense, I will leave it. To say he is smart is too cliche...he knows all the same letters and numbers as every other four year old and he can't read yet and when he writes his name you can only just now actually read it. In these ways, he is so normal. It's something all together different with my Colin...his observations on the world are what remind you that he is gifted. He lives in a special space where everything is just more. He sees more, hears more, tastes more, gives more. His latest teacher mentioned his giftedness to me this morning. If you are around him for any length of time, you see it. He says things often out of the blue that are so profound, they bring tears to my eyes. Sometimes they are so funny that I find myself crying tears of laughter. And sometimes I ache for him. Sometimes I want to turn it off for him, let him be normal, let him be four. But really, when it comes right down to it, I don't want to change him. I just want him to be happy. I want to give him every single opportunity to be whatever he wants to be. I want to eliminate his fears and pain, but what mother on earth doesn't want that? As my husband loves to say, "We all have stuff". And we do.

Colin had his very first night with a babysitter in December and it went swimmingly. Her name is Rachael and she is just right for Colin...a college student who is about to graduate in early childhood education, a quiet and respectful person, and clearly more responsible that I was at age 21. Everything about her is calming and she came over to get to know Colin before the big night, which was awesome. When she arrived to babysit, she brought crafts to make puppets and stamps and Colin was sold immediately. We had absolutely no problem leaving the house and he was perfect while we were gone. The telling moment came as we spoke to her at the end of the night. She was telling me about how fun and interesting Colin is and how he questioned everything she said and shot down some of her anecdotes. She tried to tell him about Santa Paws, a dog that Santa has....Colin was not having it. He explained to her that he sees Santa everywhere and has lots of books about him and nowhere does it show a dog. Therefore, she is obviously mistaken about the existence of said dog. She told us several other examples and said, "I quickly figured out that you guys must be realists that tell Colin exactly how it and don't encourage whimsical things...he seems so grown-up and takes apart everything that I say to him!" I couldn't help laughing while I explained that we are absolutely NOT those kind of parents. We encourage whimsy and make-believe and childhood joys constantly, but Colin was born too smart for his own good. I am about the farthest thing on the planet from a realist. LOL! We plan to have her back soon and I am so glad that Colin enjoys adults so much.

The picture at the beginning of this post is the perfect way to describe my days with Colin without using a single word. I grabbed my camera before I sat down so that I could get the shot. We are literally inseparable. He does not do a single thing without me. If I am cooking, he sets up a palate on the kitchen floor and moves all his toys there. He doesn't like to play alone and enlists me in all kinds of games that always involve me playing the part of student or child and him the part of grown-up. The only way I get to cook is by telling him that I am the cafeteria worker at whatever place he is currently running. Last night, he was the tour guide at Legoland and I was the child on the tour. Or he runs the grocery store and I am the patron. Or he is the waiter or hotel worker or teacher or life guard. I spend hours huddled in homemade forts, tucked in beside at least two of our pets and a mountain of books. We play puppets endlessly and Lego's in heavy rotation. We sit together at the computer while he asks long laundry lists of questions he wants to me look up the answer to. We watch his favorite music videos and often we move the living room furniture while he leads me in dances. From the moment he opens his eyes until the moment he shuts them, I am actively engaged with him and ensconced in his world. He is simply not one of those children who will run off and do his own thing. If he wants to watch a "Colin show", he wants me to be on the couch with him. And he doesn't sit beside me, he sits in my lap. As he is getting bigger, his lanky little legs stretch almost all the way to my feet and that is my constant view...his precious little toes floating above mine, television running in the background. He usually begins his chant of, "Mommy, sit on the couch with me! PLEASE!" right as I am finishing up dinner prep. I will always hurry to get things into the oven and then run off to grab my Nook, a pad of paper and pen and whatever cookbook I am currently scouring. I spend our time in front of the television with my head cocked to one side, using one arm to hold Colin in my lap and one arm to flip the pages in my reader or cookbook. Sometimes my neck gets a crick in it from looking over one shoulder for too long and I switch sides. He lays his head back against my chest and my face is always resting on his sweet smelling head as I read. We do this all the time, this little scene on the couch. Every morning that we don't have school, every late afternoon and sometimes in between. He likes lots of blankets, his mama and Enzo to be with him at all times. There are those moments when I wish that he would let me have a spare second to myself...I am human, after all. But I think it is a gift that my sweet boy wants to do nothing but be near me, hold my hand, play with me, sit in my lap, cuddle into my arms. He can do it forever as far as I'm concerned.

The Post that Almost Was

2012-01-01T20:00:00.000-06:00

I wrote a LONG post about the first weekend in December. A LONG POST. A beautifully written, carefully spell-checked masterpiece about the start of the Christmas season. My parents came and spent several amazing days with us, my mom and I shopped ourselves silly and I even got to turn into Cinderella and get all dressed up for a fancy party. I spent a couple of hours writing all about it. And then I deleted the whole damn thing. I was SO mad. So angry, in fact, that I didn't write at all over the next three weeks. I am admittedly a bit of a weirdo when it comes to my writing. Pouring out my heart and soul only to have it disappear with the click of a mouse did something to my brain. I just could not bring myself to start over on that post and then I didn't want to write anything. I can be a 3 year old like that. :-) So now, I am going back in and finishing all of these stories about the last few weeks because it was AH-MAZING. We had the PERFECT Christmas season! And it all started with this party on the first Saturday in December. But I refuse to re-write my post. So just trust me, it was great. The rest of the posts are going to be back dated because I started them all, but didn't finish them.

Our friend Bryan invited us to his parents big Christmas shindig and it was an absolute blast! We attended it with the Turners and Roberts and we gave those parents a run for their money! Bryan and Eren are two of our very best friends and their parents are so wonderful. We have gotten to know them all pretty well and even more so after we drank the better part of their collection of wine. ;-) It was a fantastic night and I really did feel like a princess to be all dressed up like that. It is very rare and I won't forget that night any time soon!

Happy Bejeweled Mama

I still can't believe I got to wear this out!

Colin LOVES it when we leave. Can't you tell?

We clean up good! I love Jer's tie...I wonder who picked it out? ;-)

The Last Picture of 2011

2011-12-31T23:00:00.000-06:00

The Last Picture of 2011

There are no words for how much I LOVE that a tradition started in 2008 is still going strong! Tonight we celebrated New Years Eve with our usual Shaffer family celebration of delicious food and then I made the boys take our last picture. Colin had SO much fun with it this year and I really don't know how we will ever top the above shot. :-) I have so many posts that are in production right now and I have certainly learned my lesson about procrastinating when it comes to the blog during Christmas. There will be lots of December posts published over the next day or so, but I wanted to post our official last picture right on time. I am beyond happy that we started doing this and I love the collection that I am gathering! I am so blessed! Here are the rest of the shots...Colin took some of his parents and we had LOTS of hysterical outtakes. Colin was having so much fun that he wanted to set the timer and take shots all night...Jer finally gave up, which accounts for the lovely one of me and the peanut. Have I mentioned how much I adore this boy? :-) Goodbye, 2011!

Mom and Dad looking stunning! ;-)

The first try and I LOVE Colin in this! Too blurry to be "official"...

The attempt to get Enzo in the shot

Loves the camera...don't know where he gets that! ;-)

I super love this one, too! We had so much fun!

The Last Picture of Two Fruitcakes, 2011

It's Christmas, Ya'll!

2011-12-25T13:28:00.000-06:00

FINALLY! CHRISTMAS! THE BIG DAY! HERE! Let me tell you, we had the most fantastic, blessed, amazing and wonderful Christmas possible! Colin woke up at about 6:30am and then went back to sleep when I got in bed with him! I still can't believe it! He woke up and called for me, but was clearly not totally awake and didn't realize what day it actually was yet. ;-) He fell right back to sleep when I got in bed and we slept until almost 8am!! WOW!! That was my Christmas present right there! When he woke up the second time, he jumped up and was beside himself to check out the spread. He is such a special little boy. Have I mentioned that lately? Where most children (me included!) would run out and begin tearing into everything, Colin was very slow and thoughtful. He carefully checked out all the wrapped presents and then would slowly decide which one he wanted to open. He immediately asked us to save all the ribbons! GOOD GRACIOUS! I almost cried over that one, it was so cute. My grandmother used to do that, so it was adorable and hilarious at the same time. ;-) He made sure that each and every bow was accounted for as he opened all the presents. He loved the trampoline from Santa and was especially excited that Santa remembered his Cabela's truck and red vacuum. He got two big Lego kits from us and literally jumped into our arms to say thank you when he saw them. That just made my year. Colin was so leisurely that it took quite awhile to open everything! Once he finished, he and Jer immediately started putting things together while I got breakfast underway. (We kept our pajamas on all day, I might add) I used like 12 eggs to make our stuff and tried to put them all down the garbage disposal at once, which apparently is too many. LOL! Jer ended up under the sink to fix the back-up and it was so funny! He is such a wonderful husband...first because he knows how to fix everything and second because he never gets upset and always takes me doing ridiculous things in stride! I feel so lucky to have a husband that treats me so wonderfully! He is a keeper, that one! :-)

Jer's parents came over soon after I got breakfast out of the oven and that was such a GIANT treat! We have never gotten to see them on Christmas day (since we moved back to Texas) and I loved having everyone over, relaxing and eating and playing! What a perfect morning! I just can't say enough...we are so very blessed!!

Checking out the spread for the first time!

Look at that sweet boy showing off his loot!

The vacuum! Yea!

Cabela's Truck! Thank goodness!

He was SO excited!

Glowy Christmas Morning...and an Easy Bake Oven!

Lucky Boy!

Joy

LEGO'S!

Making "Wuggle Pets" with Mom Mom!

Pop Pop carefully reading the Wuggle Pet Instructions! ;-)

PERFECT Christmas Morning!

My AMAZING husband under the sink...with antlers. I LOVE HIM.

Christmas Eve 2011

2011-12-24T22:28:00.000-06:00

Christmas Eve. I don't even know where to start. This year was totally different, which made for a lot of mixed emotions, the presiding one being that we had a fabulous time. My parents house is still under major renovation and there were no decorations hung there and nowhere for guests to sleep. There was just no way that we could have our usual Christmas there. Now, it should be noted that we decided last year that we would stay at our house for Christmas Eve this year. Getting "Santa" to my parents house in Tyler was a logistical nightmare last year and we knew that Colin was going to be old enough this year that we needed to stay home to preserve the secret of Santa Claus. That was hard to imagine because NOBODY and I repeat NOBODY does Christmas like my mom. It truly is important to create your own traditions as an adult with your own family, and going to my parents house during the season will remain an important one for the Shaffer household. We had planned to go there for either the days leading up to Christmas and come home on Christmas Eve or drive there on Christmas Day and spend the days after Christmas. But we didn't get much farther into planning because the renovations are far from done and it just wasn't an option. SO, we stayed here at our house for the duration of the holiday. It was actually surprising wonderful because there was no stress to travel and we got to really relax and enjoy the whole holiday. That part, I loved. I did, however, truly miss being surrounded by my big loud hysterical family. There is a moment when we are all together, with the cousins all playing and the adults all eating and the absolute joy of my parents house decked from the rafters with Christmas stuff when you just feel at peace. Colin missed Jackson and Pryce a LOT and asked about them so much. The only way I can describe my parents house at Christmas is "happy". It is just so happy and full of joy. That was GREATLY missed this year.

We decided to go over to Jer's parents (mom and step-dad) house on Christmas Eve in the afternoon and have our special meal and let Colin open his presents from them. That was AWESOME because we normally have our Christmas with them on the 22nd before we leave for Tyler. It was great fun to be here that week and then go over to hang out with Mom Mom and Pop Pop before the big Santa prep started. :-) We had a great time! Mom Mom made our now family favorite Christmas meal, Seafood Gratin. I LOVE THAT STUFF! Colin opened presents and played with his toys and we ate a TON of food. I brought meatballs and a salami and cheese tray with roasted grapes. I also made Pop Pop his very own pecan pie for a a present and also whipped up my mom's lemon cake to take. It is amazing that I can still wear my pants after all this awesome food! Colin loved his presents and was especially taken with his Lightning McQueen remote controlled car. He thinks it is the coolest thing ever and has been playing with it constantly ever since! Jer's dad and step-mom and sisters got Colin the Leapster LeapPad and let me tell you, those two presents have been in CONSTANT rotation. Grandparents always seem to win when it comes to gifts! With the amount of time that Colin is on that LeapPad, I am hoping it teaches him to read. And do math. But I digress. :-)After we stuffed ourselves silly and had as much fun as possible, we loaded back up to head home for the big night. Colin and I jumped right in to making cookies for Santa and reindeer food. Reindeer food is our newest tradition and one that we will absolutely be keeping. It was so simple and Colin had the most fun putting it out in the yard! He was taking it so seriously! Colin dictated a note for me to write to Santa and then informed me that he only likes chocolate milk. I made some that we left out with a few cookies and the note. I really should devote an entire post to our other new tradition this year, which is "Elf on the Shelf". We purchased the elf for Colin this year and it came in a beautiful boxed set with a book and instructions. Colin named him "Snowflake" and he would perch somewhere all day in our house before flying home to the North Pole every night to report back to Santa about Colin and how he did that day. He would then fly home before we woke up, but land in a new spot. Every morning for the whole month, Colin would BOLT out of bed and begin looking everywhere for Snowflake. It was so precious! You can't touch him or else he will lose his magic and Colin was so very careful not to go near him and only chat with him from afar. I loved absolutely every minute of it. Colin actually got teary on Christmas Eve because we knew that Snowflake would get picked up by Santa that night and would not return to us until next year. Colin asked to get his picture taken with him (his last perch was in the middle of the Christmas tree) and then sweetly told him goodbye, that he would miss him and that he loved him. Ever since that night, he has asked me randomly what I think Snowflake is doing at the North Pole and happily chatting about when he will come back. What a wonderful new tradition!! After we finished up with everything, Colin went to bed and Jer and I started to put everything together. I had wrapped everything in the days leading up to Christmas Eve, so all I had to do was make a million bows and Jer put together Colin's new trampoline. We listened to Christmas music and carefully laid out Santa. It was so peaceful and wonderful. It was just us together in our cozy house with our sweet little family surrounding us and I honestly loved every minute of that night. How lucky I am!

Christmas Eve! Click on the picture to see it in it's glory! :-)

Christmas Lights at Texas Motor Speedway

2011-12-22T22:20:00.000-06:00

Colin got to stand and look out the sunroof the whole time!

Jer was not happy that I disobeyed the rules and got out of the car...but I had to!

How can you pass up getting a picture of this? :-)

The slurpie made the trip even more fun!

Colin loved this part the most!

This was my favorite part! What a GREAT time we all had!

The Annual PJ Playdate

2011-12-21T22:21:00.000-06:00

So our playdates have been going strong for years now and the annual Christmas version is getting cuter, louder and bigger as time goes on. The babies are not babies anymore and now the overall din of a huge group of 4 year old boys and their not-so-little siblings is like a dull roar. But it is still wonderful. Eren hosted it again this year and added a book exchange to the fun. All the moms brought delicious treats and most of us even wore our own pajamas, which was awesome. I continue to be extremely grateful for finding these women and their children at exactly the time in my life when I would need them most. Sometimes the fact that Colin is an only child can hurt me a little bit more during this season because I remember the joy that my sisters and I shared together growing up. But having all of these fun things to do with our best friends certainly lessens the pain because Colin and these kiddos have grown up together and are exceptionally close. He gets to share these moments with his de facto brothers and sisters and it is so much fun to watch! We have the most wonderful kids!

Trevor (I think...could be indentical twin Elliot!), Colin, Anders and Ryan picking out their books!

Look at all these cutie pies!

Lots of cute boys! I love Colin's moose pajamas!

The kids that we actually managed to get in a picture together. :-)

A Merry Twosome

2011-12-20T21:00:00.000-06:00

There is a lot that I want to remember about the Christmas season of 2011, but toward the top of the list has to be the dynamic between Enzo and Colin and how much it has changed and grown in such a short window of time. Enzo is an Italian Greyhound, which is code for skiddish and not fond of children. Colin is a child. The combination was not exactly ideal. Enzo has never been mean to Colin, but he did like to go the other direction when toddler Colin headed his direction. That has been the way of things for a long while...Enzo kind of just stayed out of Colin's reach unless he was being offered food. Clearly he has no problem accepting food. But I digress. ;-)

During the last two months, something dramatically changed. I don't know exactly how it happened, but one day, things were different. Enzo started getting cozy with Colin on the couch and then wanted to start getting into his bed during the bedtime routine. I found myself posting lots of pictures on Facebook of Colin and Enzo together. And it became very clear all of a sudden that Colin had become Enzo's "boy" and Enzo is Colin's best friend. It is the ultimate childhood relationship, I think...a boy and his dog. I am so glad that my two boys have each other!

LOVE

Cheesy Christmas 2011

2011-12-19T22:12:00.000-06:00

I have been waiting for months and it finally happened...the infamous annual "Turner Family Cheesy Christmas Party". It was, of course, hysterical. Bryan and Eren are seriously the funniest and most wonderful couple in the world. I would gladly watch any sitcom devoted to those two. ;-) The premise is to wear the ugliest and most cheesy Christmas outfit ever and also impress the crowd with the funniest White Elephant gift. This year, we took a bottle of Drakkar Noir and a set of plastic bracelets that said, "I LOVE BOYS" in neon. I thought it was pretty classy, if I do say so myself. I made jalapeno bacon poppers and some candy cookies and bought matching turtlenecks for me and Jer. They were solid black with red stockings all over and they were absolutely hideous. I LOVED IT. While it is hard to pick a single favorite moment from this party, it would have to be walking in to find that Lindsey and Frank had made sweatshirts to wear using other peoples family pictures. Lindsey choose us and Frank choose the Turners and I had tears literally rolling down my face when I saw them. It was absolutely HYSTERICAL. We look good on a sweatshirt, I tell you! We have also started a new tradition lately that was passed down from Nate. He has a signature move where he takes a "pass out picture" from everywhere they go and the more inappropriate the setting, the better. Like you will be looking through random vacation pictures of their family and then BOOM, you see Nate laying on the floor pretending to be passed out in the middle of a hike or at the dinner table. We get the biggest kick out of these photos and they usually make me laugh until my stomach hurts. ;-) Last summer, we start posing the famous pass out shot at some of our group parties or date nights and they are so funny that I can't stand it. We even took one all dressed up during the fancy party at Bryan's parents! (I know this is lame humor, but I am already aware that I am a DORK.) Bryan posed our biggest shot yet during their party and I will probably be laughing at that one for a LONG time. :-) Cheers!

Christmas Cards!

2011-12-18T22:22:00.000-06:00

This year, Pinterest has dominated my holiday decorating and I am SO glad! It is no secret how much I love Christmas cards. LOVE THEM. Every year, I use the fridge to display them all, but I have been looking for a better way. Two years ago, I hung them around the mantle, but ours is rather small and it looked pretty cluttered and I ran out of room quickly. Last year, I went back to covering the fridge, which is cute, but I wanted them in sight more often. I found the idea on Pinterest to run ribbon over kitchen cabinets (making the doors look like presents) and pin them there. That was my plan, but then at the last minute, I decided to move it to the entry closet door right as you walk in. It made the door look like a giant present, which was super cute long before the cards started rolling in. Then Colin and I had a blast making the pins, which are just tiny clothes pins that we put Christmas craft stickers on. It turned out absolutely adorable and it was one of my favorite things in the house this year. These cards make me feel cozy and loved and I don't think it will EVER get old to receive them and put them out on display! We even got several more after this picture was taken! I LOVE IT!

Colin's Class Christmas Party!

2011-12-15T21:52:00.000-06:00

Somehow, another year has passed and I was able to attend my SECOND annual preschool Christmas extravaganza today. I really honestly don't know how it happened. Five minutes ago, Colin was in Miss Gina's class. And now here we are. Where does the time go?!? I wonder how many more times I will say that over the next 50 years? Probably at least twice. Being a mother really turns you into a cliche. :-)

Due to the fact that I am ~~completely insane~~ slightly addicted to cooking, I decided to make Colin's teacher gifts this year. We spent literally all day Wednesday baking. I LOVED IT. This is honestly one of the very tip top reasons that I love this season. I love to make people happy. Seriously, I know that sounds over the top cheesy, but I get my kicks from surprising people with something that makes them super deliriously happy. I made a huge batch of chocolate chip/pecan/toffee cookies and my homemade-from-scratch-awesome-carb-filled-heaven-scented cinnamon rolls. I see those cinnamon rolls in my dreams. And this is the time of year that I make batch after batch and pray that I can still wear my pants in January. Which I never can. But that is another post. Anyway...

I made a pan of the rolls for Miss Courtney and Miss Blake and Colin was very quick to inform me that he HAD to bring presents to Miss Gina and Miss Heather from last year. SO, we arrived at school this morning with wrapped baked goods up to our eyeballs. Colin has gotten into dictating very detailed notes to me whenever he gives gifts and the cards did not disappoint! He comes up with cutest things to say and I am 99% sure that he asked Miss Blake on a date in her card. He asked her to "come have dinner at my house and see my beautiful Christmas tree". Yeah....that sounds way too much like a date for my liking. Their class party was a Grinch themed pajama party and the teachers were dressed so cute! Colin was a big fan of the "Grinchy Green Juice". Super precious!

Pizza at school is still the coolest party ever

Green and red food = AWESOME

Laughing with his friends at lunch

Musical chairs at a 4 year old party is ADORABLE

Miss Courtney stopping the music! LOVE Colin's face here!

Colin (far right) and his whole class opening their book exchange presents

The cinnamon rolls. JOY in swirled dough form.

Our Newest Member

2011-12-13T22:08:00.000-06:00

Colin got a new kitty named Evi this year and "Evi-the-cat" (as I like to call her) or "Evingston" (as Jer likes to call her) is Colin Shaffer's best buddy. They love each other. A LOT. The love affair has gotten to the point that Evi stands at his door and meows at all hours of the night if we leave it closed. I used to come out of Colin's room and close the door after our bedtime routine. That does not exactly work anymore. Evi likes to come to the kitchen and get dinner with Ferris Mewler, but soon after her meal, she is standing in the hall yelling to be let into Colin's room. She gets let in and out basically all night long. :-) I took these shots right before bed...Colin was singing Christmas carols to her! She is the sweetest and most loving kitty in the whole world and she lets Colin hold her and tug on her and even carry her around, despite the fact that her back paws drag the floor. She sits in my lap every single time I sit down at the computer and loves to lay on her back to get her tummy scratched. She prefers to drink water out of the running sink and sleeps during every moment that she is not eating or being scratched behind her ears. We bought her a contraption called "The Furminator" and she loooooves to get brushed with it. You would not believe the amount of fur that we pull off this cat! She also LOVES my dad for some reason and will spend literally every moment that he is here in his lap being loved on. Anyway, she is an absolute joy and is the perfect new addition to our family. We are so thankful that 2011 brought us her little white tipped paws! It makes it even more special that we adopted her from our best friends...she really does have quite the extended family!

SHOW TIME!

2011-12-13T22:05:00.000-06:00

Today, Colin performed in his second Christmas program. Today, I cried in the audience during my second time to watch Colin in his Christmas program. There is NOTHING more precious than seeing my baby singing and dancing on stage with all his sweet little classmates. I can literally feel my heart exploding when I watch him. All I can think about is how little he looks and how sweet and how tiny the window of time is that he will do things like this and how I need to memorize how soft his cheeks are and how much I wish I could freeze time so that he would always be this achingly precious. Or something like that. :-) This is truly the highlight of my whole year. (clicking on the picture will pull the collage up to full screen adorableness)

2011 Family Photo Shoot

2011-12-12T20:00:00.000-06:00

I am slightly neurotic when it comes to Christmas cards. And pictures of my family. And combining those two things. Checking the mail in December is one of my favorite things and I get so excited to design OUR card and send it to everyone we love. Needless to say, I was not proud of myself when I realized that November was more than halfway over and I didn't have our picture planned yet. We have taken a yearly family shot for the last 3 years and since last year was a silly pajama theme, I was really excited to get some pictures to hang year round. My neighbor Jenny just happens to be getting her own photography business off the ground, so she agreed to meet us at the park down the street from the house and take a few shots. I cut it WAY too close and am going to have a hard time getting these cards to folks before Christmas, but I LOVE how the pictures turned out! Colin adores Jenny and practically lives at that park, so it made for a somewhat peaceful and easy-going shoot. I am so thankful to know the right people! :-) Jenny and I grew up in the same town and attended the same school and then just happened to end up as neighbors!! Crazy! And I think it is so great that I will always have the memory of our park in these photos. No matter where we end up in our lives, we will remember the little park where Colin first played and spent all his time! Is there anyone sappier than me? No? ;-)

A Day for a Chef

2011-12-10T21:53:00.000-06:00

Today, we went to a wonderful birthday party for Colin's favorite newly minted 5 year old red-head, Avery. She is my good friend Wendy's daughter and she is brilliant and adorable and loves Giada from Food Network. Therefore, her party theme was cooking and they made chefs hats and cooked their own pizzas and cupcakes. It was so brilliant and Colin had the best time. I am loving Avery in this shot! She knows how to throw a party, that girl!

The favor was a tiny rolling pin, cookie cutters and a recipe for sugar cookies! Colin used the cookie cutter as soon as we got home and made his first batch of cookies "almost" by himself. Now, granted, they were made from store-bought pie dough (which I hate) and mint Hershey Kisses (which I hate), so you should take it with a grain of salt when I say that they were horrible. But Colin had a blast and was SO proud of himself that I ate two. And promised myself to stop impulsively making things that look pretty on Pinterest. :-)

Slow Down, December!

2011-12-08T21:07:00.000-06:00

It's already December 8th. I find this totally unacceptable. I LOVE THIS MONTH. I DON'T WANT IT TO END! It feels like I waited forever for it to get here and now I am blinking and it is flying by. Sure, maybe I am being slightly melodramatic. Not that I'm prone to that or anything. Anyway, we are having the most wonderful time around here and I have now decided that four is the perfect age for Christmas. I will probably say that every year for at least the next several. But Colin is so full of joy right now and I am trying to soak up every single moment. Last night, we attended an ornament exchange party with all of our friends and Colin took a nasty spill on their ceramic tile stairs. He busted his chin up pretty badly and I had moments of wondering if we were in for an ER visit. Good lord, the mouth can BLEED! Luckily he appears to be okay today, but the right side of his chin and cheek is seriously swollen, to the point that he talks funny and looks like he is a chipmunk with acorns stuck in his lip. The poor peanut! We had a great time tonight taking "glowy" tree pictures with the SLR camera and I wanted to make this one a close-up shot, but his poor face is a bit too messed up.

Jer took this one and I think it will probably go down as one of my all time favorite pictures. I am so in love with Christmas and I think this shows EXACTLY why. :-)

Breakfast With Santa!

2011-12-04T21:12:00.004-06:00

The Christmas season has started off with a BIG bang! What a fantastic week we have had! My parents couldn't come for Thanksgiving, so my dad took some time off work and they BOTH came here for several days. It was absolutely amazing! They were here Wednesday through Sunday and I can't even express how wonderful it was. We just laid around, shopped and ate. Perfection. :-) Saturday was a big day...we woke up bright and early to head over to Breakfast with Santa! The event was hosted out at Jer's parents country club and he ended up having to work at the last minute. Since my mom was here, she took his ticket and joined us. Colin LOVED having both of his grandmothers at one event and we had the best time! He was all smiles and having a blast. He was counting down the days and this year did not disappoint! I was sick last year and missed the festivities, so I had an especially good time seeing Mom Mom dressed up like an elf! I am so thankful for the wonderful pictures we got. Originally, Colin was adamant that he was not going to go anywhere near Santa. He has asked me LOTS of logistical questions last year (big surprise!) and we told him that all the Santa's in the malls were Santa's helpers, since he can't be in that many places at once. Well, I forgot all about that until the night before the breakfast. I asked Colin during our bedtime routine what he was planning to ask Santa for. He said, "Mom, is this the REAL Santa or an actor?"....lovely. I stumbled at first and then recalled our conversations from last Christmas. I told him that it would be Santa's helper, who works DIRECTLY with Santa. That was when he told me that he was not going to get near him, but would allow me to tell him what Colin wanted. Only me. SO, I was not surprised when he absolutely refused to get near the stage where the Santa pictures were taking place. Jer's mom employed all kinds of tricks to get him up on stage and it finally worked. He decided at literally the very last minute that he would go up and get a picture. And it just happened to end up being the most wonderful, precious, amazing, fantastic picture with Santa ever. At least according to me. I LOVE IT. I don't think I will ever top this one.
Here are some more cute shots from the festivities...here is Colin with his Mom Mom, the elf. They were checking out the trains, which is always his favorite part. I think he looks so big and grown-up here!

Colin and Mom Mom and Mimi (my mom)...how cool that they are both together with Colin!

Here we are writing a letter to Santa. This was serious business, folks. Colin is dictating.

He was VERY focused. :-)

This face means "Can someone help me memorize this list before he drops it in the mailbox?! PLEASE?!"

Super cute Colin and Mom Mom!

I just love this one! My mom, Jer's mom, Colin and me. What a great morning!

Me and my little man...I was so glad that it FINALLY got cold over the weekend. It was a rainy day and very Christmasy!

I will always cherish this picture of me and my mom with Colin! ALWAYS!

How cute is this one with Jer's mom?! You can really tell how happy Colin was to have both of his grandmothers there...he was glowing!

The perfect end to a great morning!

THANKSGIVING 2011

2011-11-24T21:01:00.005-06:00

Today is Thanksgiving. ALREADY. It's over. It was different and wonderful and now it is finally politically correct to have my entire house decorated for Christmas. Not that I decorated two weeks ago or anything crazy like that.

I am going to write all about the details because this is the stuff that I like to look back on...all the little things about my favorite holidays that seem like a big deal now, but I won't remember in a few years. This year, my parents are busy renovating their house and it is completely torn up right now, which means that they were unable to host our usual family meal. And for what I think is the first time ever, our family separated for festivities. My sister Meredith hosted at her house in Tyler for her in-laws and my parents went there, along with my other sister Alieson. I hosted here at my house for my in-laws and us (obviously). With Meredith and I both being married with children who are getting older, the holidays have started to slowly change. It is hard for me to do things differently because ~~I keep forgetting that I am a grown up now~~ we treasure our traditions so much, but I have been making a real effort to think positively about doing things outside the box. My parents are coming to visit on Sunday and will stay for a few days next week, so we are still getting to celebrate with them.

This month, I have had the BEST time deciding on my menu and planning out the big feast. I will be the first to say it...my first hosting gig in 2009 was not very good. In fact, if I am being honest, I didn't really end up liking anything that I served. It was my first time ever hosting a big group...heck, more than two people...and I was destined to screw a lot of things up. I made a lot of rookie mistakes and I ended up feeling sad that I hadn't pulled off very good food. I was just starting to be really proud of my work in the kitchen at that point, but lord knows that I didn't know how hard it was to pull off Thanksgiving for 12. Or 13. A lot. My biggest mistake was trying to make dishes that I thought people wanted to see, rather than things I knew and loved and was good at. I also didn't try everything before I made it, which is the classic rookie mistake. No recipe is how you want it the first time...it's just a base point for creating what you like. I clearly didn't have that completely figured out a couple of years ago. Just because a recipe sounds good in a magazine or food blog does not mean that it actually IS good. The fresh green bean casserole I made was absolutely horrible that year and I don't even LIKE green bean casserole. What was I thinking? I also made EVERYTHING the day before, completely, which turned everything into leftovers before anyone had a chance to taste it. I was so nervous about having it all done before everyone arrived, that I did too much in advance. I didn't have enough knowledge to know which steps were acceptable the day before and which weren't. It was all just blah and I even managed to screw up the pies, which I am generally great at. SOOOO, this year I felt a thousand times better about things. I had a much smaller group and I made things I knew were good. Road tested, if you will. And, in what will probably be the only time ever, everything was perfect and ready on time! I love food and cooking with such a serious passion and it felt so amazing to have the Thanksgiving dream meal in my head actually turn into reality. Here is the menu for posterity.

Marinated Cheese Appetizer with cranberry pecan relish, crackers and wine
Roasted Turkey Breast with Truffle Butter
Leek and Wild Mushroom Stuffing
Glazed Pearl Onions
Four Cheese Scalloped Potatoes (with GOOD cheese!)
Roasted Brussel Sprouts with Pomegranate and Hazelnuts
Jalapeno Cranberry Sauce
Jalapeno Cornbread
Parker House Rolls
Pecan Pie
Chocolate Pie

I am still gloating that I managed to make all aspects of the meal from scratch and actually complete them on time today. The Parker House Rolls were a real labor of love. I got it into my head that I needed to make homemade rolls this year. I have never attempted this before. I made THREE - count 'em - THREE batches of dough before I found what I wanted. And these are yeast rolls with lots of sitting and rising and kneading and waiting. Thank GOD I started making the dough last weekend. I was planning to make it ahead and freeze the rolls before baking them, which gave me plenty of time to curse all the idiot recipes I tried before finding the sweet spot. I was smoking pissed when the second batch didn't work, either. But the third was perfection. They rose into pillows of joy, I tell you. :-) Now that I know what to do, I plan to make them from scratch every year. It's easy to freeze ahead and they are so amazing. But, I am a bread-aholic, so this may be a bigger deal to me than others. I only remembered to take pictures of a couple of things, and luckily these were one of them. HEAVEN!

I also loved the glazed pearl onions and this was my first year to make those myself, too. I was on the fence about serving creamed or glazed and which of the thousands of recipes I found to use and after trial and error, I decided on these guys. They seriously turned out like pieces of candy. So yummy!! They will also stay on the menu in the future.

I also got a shot of the table last night after I finished putting it together. I think it turned out cute, considering I rigged it from a paper tablecloth and the fall mantle decorations that I just took apart. :-)

I really wish that I had remembered to take pictures of everything else, but it was so busy and I totally forgot before we started eating. The stuffing was a recipe that was given to me by my amazing best friend Kimberly Roberts and it was so. insanely. good. I have heard her raving about it for years and finally decided to listen to someone that I KNOW has excellent taste and boy, was that the right choice! I made it with the most fantastic bread that I could find in Central Market and it turned out absolutely fantastic. Jer says he wants it every year and I agree. This one will become a family tradition! And let me HIGHLY recommend roasting a bird with white truffle butter! It took some hunting around Central Market (which is our very high end grocery store), but I found it and it was worth it! The breast was moist and delicious and just a yummy treat. I am very thankful that I roasted that breast, because we ordered a Greenberg Smoked Turkey this year and we got a horrible one! I couldn't believe it! I have been eating those for years and I don't know how we got the short end of the stick this time. It was waaaay too smokey and literally tasted like a forest fire in my mouth. YUCK. So strange! Everything else on the menu was a tried and true favorite and turned out great. This year, I did all the prep for each recipe (like chopping veggies and herbs and combining sauces and seasonings into little cups) and then actually prepared all the dishes today, instead of the day before. That turned out to work perfectly. All the time consuming stuff was done and the cooking part was easy! I actually was finished a little too early and ended up needing to keep everything in the oven to stay warm. It took less time than I thought and I will continue with prepping the day before and cooking the day of. MUCH better! Jer's mom also brought my favorite Chambord sweet potatoes, so the day had all my favorites.

After we ate like crazy, we all sat around to watch the Cowboys WIN and Colin had the best time. He got a little over tired at the end and needed to lay down with me in bed for a few minutes, but overall it was a perfect day for all of us. I am so thankful for all of the wonderful family and friends in my life. I have a lot of blessings, that's for sure!

Here are a few more shots from our week before Thanksgiving...this is a self-portrait shoot that we did one afternoon with the timer on the camera. I love my handsome boy and I need to work on getting in more pictures with him.

We made turkey cookies one afternoon after school and Colin had the best time! Look at that orange icing grin!

Three of my best boys all cozy on the couch while I cooked yesterday morning. It was the best sight to see in the world! We are just missing a couple of cats to complete the family...and they don't do paparazzi very well. You will also love the addition of baby Lucy to this shot. Colin takes very good care of his "daughter". He felt she needed to watch shows with them. AND her "grandfather" needed to hold her. I love my son. :-)

And now...let's do some Christmas, shall we?? WOO HOO!!

A Tree

2011-11-08T20:37:00.003-06:00

There is a giant Christmas tree in my living room. I'm not kidding. I can explain. Really. I know that today is November 8th and there is absolutely no plausible reason for my tree to already be standing in my living room, lights ablaze. But it kind of is.

We needed a new tree this year. After seven glorious Christmas seasons with my tall, skinny fabulous tree, it decided to turn it's lights out for the final time. Jer tried to fix it, but it was just done. My mom got a new tree and gave us her old one, which lasted for 2 seasons, but then decided that 2010 was the end. SOOO, I had to have a new tree this year. Yesterday, Colin went to school and I ~~bribed~~ convinced Jer to go with me to Garden Ridge to get the official replacement.

On a side note...I love Garden Ridge at Christmas! I walked in that store and almost died and went to heaven. I spent about 15 minutes just staring at the aisle of Christmas ribbon before I noticed that Jer was about to internally combust, but also trying very hard to keep his mouth shut and let me look. I was merciful and took him home, but vowed that I would be back, unencumbered by husband, to spend as many hours as I wanted looking at glitter.

ANYWAY, the tree. We found a reasonable tree (despite me trying very hard to up sell Jer to the 12 foot version..."We can just put it in the kitchen where the ceiling is higher!") and put the box in the car. Then we picked up Colin from school. He went crazy over the tree that was filling up all the space beside his seat. When we got home, we clearly weren't going to put the huge box in the attic, only to take it down again in a couple of weeks. (Yes, I decorate for Christmas in the days before Thanksgiving. It's more efficient. Leave me alone.) We had no room in the garage and pulled the box into the house, wondering what to do with it. Then Colin started chanting, "OPEN THE TREE! LET ME SEE THE TREE! OPEN IT! PLEASE! HURRY! NOW? NOW? OPEN THE TREE! TREE! OPEN THE TREE!! MOMMMMYYYY, PLEASE!". I don't know where he gets the Christmas obsession from! We opened the tree. I told Jer that we might as well just put the tree up where it is going to go and be done with it. I will wait to decorate it. So that's what we did. It's way too big for our living room. You can't exactly walk past it. It's fabulous. And then, of course I had to fluff the branches. And Colin wanted to turn it on. And the sun went down and the living room started to glow and I went to my happy place. And I left the lights on. Just for the night. (Jer was more than a little embarrassed when the pizza guy came.) And then maybe they are on right now. At least I didn't get down the decorations. Because that would be weird.

I am probably not going to get the decorations down this weekend. More than likely I won't. Maybe there is a 50-ish percent chance I won't get them down. I think. What?

Halloween 2011

2011-11-01T14:52:00.007-05:00

We just made it through one heck of a holiday weekend! I was very happy to wake up this morning to November and a break in all the action! We had so much fun this year! Let's recap the festivities, shall we?

Last weekend, we had a blast at the McGehearty's annual kids Halloween party. My friend Heather throws the absolute best parties in the world...she is just a natural at it! The kids had a blast making homemade slime, eating all sorts of ghoulish treats and going for "spider hunts" in the backyard (tons of plastic spiders were spread everywhere!). They even had a pinata, which is always a HUGE hit with our crowd. :-) Colin spent the majority of the party with Lindsey's sweet baby boy Nolan. He LOVES that baby! He also loves Lindsey...as we were leaving, he said, "WAIT! I can't leave without telling Lindsey goodbye!". It was so sweet!

This past week was when things really kicked up a notch on the busy scale. My mom came to town on Wednesday and spent the rest of the week staying with us, which was awesome! I LOVE that she is retired now and can come and spend time with us whenever she wants to. Colin was over the moon about it and every morning that she was here, Colin got up in the morning and got in her bed, rather than coming to wake me up. Which leads me to the part of the post where I ask my mother to move in permanently. ;-) We really had the greatest week ever. On Thursday, she took me and my sister Alieson to lunch at Brio's and then we spent way too much time in the Yankee Candle Store. That place is heaven on earth, I tell you! On Friday, Jer had a random day off and my mom and I got to spend literally the whole day together while he babysat. I honestly can't remember the last time that I spent a day with my mom like that and it was heavenly! The first place we stopped was Gap so that she could pick up a pair of pants. I was milling around and saw the cutest hat in the world. I snatched it up and showed my mom that it was exactly what I was talking about in my last blog post. She kept telling me that it was fabulous and that I should get it and that I was being an idiot by not wearing one if I liked it. The two sales people overheard our conversation and immediately chimed in about my hat debate. I had the whole store involved at this point. ;-) They both said the hat was fantastic and that I should get it. One of them even snapped the tags off right there and stuck the hat on my head, telling me to wear it out the door right then. So, what else could I do?! I wore it! I got a huge kick from the big response I got on the blog post and it was cracking me up that I turned around and bought the hat. I was determined to make a go of it! As soon as I walked out the door with my mom, a woman who was in the parking lot called out to me, telling me that she loved my hat. My mom was all, "SEE?!". It was hysterical. Now determined, I wore that hat for all of the next half hour. The problem with wool hats in Texas is that by noon, it is too damn hot to wear them. I begrudgingly abandoned the hat to the car, but I promise you that I am going to rock that thing this winter, along with the cashmere beret that sits gathering dust in my closet! Who cares what other people think! I like it! At 34 years old, I figure I should stop worrying so much about what other people think, anyway. My mom took this shot with my phone...not a great picture, but a FABULOUS hat!

We kept making our rounds after that and hit several more stores. I didn't really buy anything else, but had a great time drooling over all the awesome fall clothes. We had lunch at Cafe Express and then I took my mom over to see the giant dutch oven that I want for Christmas. It was a perfect day! I then spent the remainder of the afternoon and night making my homemade cinnamon rolls to take to Tanya's baby shower the next morning. Tanya is due with little Vivian Ruth on Thanksgiving day and we gave her a shower on Saturday morning. Kim hosted at her house and we all contributed dishes. I made the cinnamon rolls for everyone last Christmas and they were requested again, so I got down to business on Friday afternoon. :-) They take forever to make, but aren't hard to do at all. The reward for your time is SO WORTH IT and let's just say that my diet was NOT followed on Saturday. I ate my fair share of those babies. I have a major problem with pastry. MAJOR. Anyway, the shower was so much fun and my mom got to go with me! It felt great to have my mom finally meet and hang out with some of my friends. I am always so jealous of my friends who have their parents living close by. She took the following picture for us...Tanya is the pregnant red-headed supermodel standing behind me, in case you didn't know. :-) What a great morning!

That night, we had our annual "grown-ups only" Halloween party to attend and I was yet again so thankful to my mom for staying with us all weekend and taking care of the little man. We had the best time ever and didn't make it home until 1:30am, which is LATE for us old folks. Jer and I managed to snag "sexiest couple", but since he threatened to murder me, I don't have any pictures to show. HA!! I do have one of me with a couple of friends, but I cropped them out because I need express written consent to share grown-up Halloween party pictures on the worldwide web. :-) I think I was a very good "Brownie", if i do say so myself. I thought my addition of bows with the beret pretty much made it.

So, FINALLY, we come to yesterday...HALLOWEEN! Colin went to school and they had their big Halloween party. They did a "trunk-or-treat" this year where the cars line up in the parking lot and decorate their trunks and hand out candy. They also had two bounce houses set up and a photo op that was adorable. I volunteered to work, so I had the first shift and got to see a ton of precious little cuties. I ran home afterwards, picked up Jer and came back for Colin's turn. He was so precious in his "builder" costume and had a great time trick-or-treating to all the trunks. After that, I ran to the store and stocked up for the trick-or-treat get together that we hosted here at the house. I made chili with cornbread and spiked cider and we had the Parkers and Turners over for some dinner and trick-or-treating. It was a blast!! Colin loved having his buddies to walk around with and the kids all had the most fun. All in all, we had a PERFECT Halloween this year! Here are some of the great shots from yesterdays festivities:

I am so thankful this year, more than ever before, to have my wonderful family. My son and husband are my whole world and my blessings are endless. I am a very lucky girl.

Watch Out World...She's Ready to Overshare!

2011-10-26T12:05:00.007-05:00

Things that are on my mind in no particular order:

1. I don't understand hats. Americans in general don't understand them, I suppose. Cute hats are the trend right now, but I can't figure out how to wear them. I was in Charming Charlie the other day and there were so many cute hats, but buying one gives me a panic attack. I bought the cutest cashmere winter beret last year which I wore zero times. I couldn't figure out when to wear it. When it's cold...sure...but then do you keep it on inside? Do you take it off? If you wear one of the new fedora type hats, when the heck do you take that off? Do you wear it all the time? Do you look like a giant dork if you're 34 years old and rocking one in the middle of Bed Bath and Beyond? I am going to put money on that answer being "yes". I always secretly like trends that I don't think I am cool enough or British enough to pull off. This section also applies to scarves. I love scarves. I cannot bring myself to wear one. I always look like a giant walking scarf with a head. Do they sell scarves for short girls? Below is what I don't look like in a scarf:
Did she take this off when she got to her destination? I just don't know.

2. I look and (more importantly) feel like an idiot when I wear a necklace. I put this into the category of "things that are wrong with Chalna". I love necklaces...all those big, chunky, fabulous things hanging in every store...but when I get one home, it sits without ever being worn. I talk myself out of wearing one 99.9% of the time. First of all, I feel like they are too dressy for almost everywhere I ever go. If I am going out for girls night or a date with Jer, I will put one on and wear it for about 15 minutes around the house and then take it off before I leave. I always decide that I don't like something about it. Just the feeling of a big necklace around my throat is oddly uncomfortable to me. And regardless of the outfit or necklace, I always find the look overwhelming on me. I think this also goes back to being petite. Things that I love in magazines never look right on me. Add necklaces to this. I also hate the feeling of anything around my wrist, though I love the look of watches and bracelets. When I wear one, I always take it off in the car as soon as I head for home. I am so weird.

3. I need a haircut in a bad way. I also need to get it colored. I started going grey at the ripe old age of 22 (thanks, genetics!) and now I have serious grey tufts of hair around my face. I don't mind the random streaks on the rest of my head, but seeing white around my ears and temples makes me want to poke my eyes out. I have taken to braiding my bangs back into my ponytail, but that has to stop for now because the flipping braid is GREY. That's super hot. I hate coloring my own hair because I was ~~cursed~~ blessed with the thickest hair in the world. I have to buy 3 bottles of color for one all over coloring. And even then, I make a giant mess, get it all over myself and the bathroom, destroy at least two towels, and end up with hair that is several different colors because I always miss spots in the back. And it makes my arms hurt. But it costs an arm and a leg to get all that done and I have to waste one of Colin's entire school days to accomplish it. And there is always something else that needs to get done during those few precious child-free hours. And you can't let just anyone cut very thick hair. You can't imagine how horribly it can go wrong. And of course, my trusted Leslie is 40 minutes from my house and always booked a month in advance. Sigh. Maybe now is a good time to really give that fedora thing a try. :-)

4. There needs to be a system of checks and balances for food bloggers. There is some horrible stuff out there. It is clear to me that I am a raging food snob and I am trying to get over it, but I can almost always assure you that if a recipe calls for a can of "cream of anything" soup, I will hate it. I know...it is almost un-American of me. I am even embarrassed to admit it to people. I hate King Ranch Chicken. It is probably some type of sacrilege. But I keep trying stuff that sounds easy and calls for cans of soup because I spend a fortune on groceries and spend hours in my kitchen and I need to have simple days, too. Being a food snob takes up a lot of time. I found a food blogger on Pinterest the other day who listed several hummus recipes, none of which used tahini paste. There is no such thing as hummus without tahini. Sure, maybe it is a tasty dip of some kind, but it's not hummus. What if someone had never made hummus and was going to give it their first shot after reading her blog? They would probably think immediately that they did something wrong because it didn't taste like hummus and would assume that hummus is just one of those things that can't be made at home. And they would be so wrong because hummus is so easy and so much better made at home! I know...I need to take up yoga or meditation. I think way too much. (and I promise that I don't mind folks who like stuff with cream soup. I am well aware that I am strange.) I also don't really like ice cream. Or ketchup. Or processed cheese on burgers. Or peas. It is amazing that I have friends. ;-)

5. As of this week, I officially lost all the weight that I gained on those fertility drugs! I am back down to exactly where I was when I lost my weight in the summer of 2010. I feel a thousand times better! Gaining that much weight that fast was unsettling and it feels good to be back to normal. I need to start doing some serious strength training now...I am feeling a little bit saggy this time around. I can tell that I am getting older because things don't seem to pop back into place like they did in years past. I feel great about the big weight loss, but now I would like to tone up. I am horrible at working out and I am determined to change that. I am so flaky when it comes to the gym.

6. I am now obsessed with making cute lunches for Colin. I have started a new mission to make him something exciting and wonderful every time. I blame this entirely on Pinterest. And the fact that I have a personal goal to make Colin the happiest kid on the planet. I know that he struggles with certain things, so I find myself wanting to bring him joy in unexpected places. I like the idea of lunch being a happy surprise, so I keep trying to make it cuter and better and more delicious. And as it turns out, there are tons of blogs that are dedicated solely to packing lunches! Damn you, Pinterest.

7. My child is the strangest kid sometimes. Today, I made him homemade waffles for breakfast. He started crying because he didn't want them. My husband, who had already eaten, came in and ate two of them in the hopes that I wouldn't set our house on fire with my mind.

8. They opened a Yankee Candle Store in Southlake Town Center. I just happen to be obsessed with holiday scented candles. And now there is a whole speciality store dedicated to them. With hundreds of scents that you can't find in other stores. So, if you need me, you know where to look.

9. I went to the live show of "So You Think You Can Dance" for the 3rd year in a row this week. I have the most wonderful friends in the whole world and find myself extremely lucky to have a group of best girls who share my goal of being a dancer when we grow up. Because it could totally still happen. You don't know! It could!

10. I am not a fan of grumpy people. I have a few friends on Facebook who do nothing but update their status with how much everything sucks. I feel sad for people who can't think positively. Which begs the point, do grumpy people hate seeing all my happy posts? Probably so. I always think about ones threshold for stuff like that. For example, I have one Facebook acquaintance (a family member of a friend...rather obscure) who drives me absolutely bonkers with her updates. She ends everything she writes with 2 exclamation points and her posts are only a couple of glitter unicorn stickers short of making my head explode. She says stuff like, "Going to Chick-Fil-A!!", "Standing in line at Target!!", "Drinking a pumpkin spice latte while my 2 year old practices her calligraphy and I put my feet up after feeding the homeless and curing cancer!!" Okay, maybe the last one is an exaggeration, but not by much. ;-) She drives me absolutely insane. So, I have my own personal threshold established, and I am sure that some of my more cynical friends are annoyed by my usually upbeat posts. And I know that my childless friends probably think that my frequent posts about Colin are the most annoying thing ever. But I quit worrying about it. I gotta be me!

And thus concludes the most random blog post of all time. If you read all of this, you are even more aware that I am a crazy girl. :-)

A Fall Love Affair

2011-10-12T09:22:00.006-05:00

October is everything that is good. October is everything that I wait for. It's like a giant door that I get to open, that I have been making my way toward for the last 9 months. Finally, I have arrived and I can push the antique handles and throw the doors wide. I peek inside for the first time and I see everything that I have been waiting for looming in front of me. Pumpkins and flickering candle light and cider on the stove...cozy blankets, pot roast, fireplaces and fuzzy socks. Cold rain tapping on the windows, boots and sweaters. Pies and trick-or-treaters and Colin in footed pajamas. Picking out costumes and drawing whiskers on my cheeks to make my baby laugh. Pilgrim and Indian costumes made from construction paper, apples, Christmas candles, turtlenecks. Twinkling lights, mittens, pumpkin spice lattes, rain boots and letters to Santa. The city tree lighting on a frosty night, the radio station that switches to Christmas carols on November 1st, the endless stream of themed playdates and the smell of cinnamon. My wonderful husband teetering on a ladder to put the lights on the roof, Colin jumping up and down while we pull the giant tubs of decorations out of the attic, stacking all his Christmas books back on the low shelf for him. Flipping on the Christmas tree and the mantle first thing in the morning while your coffee is still steaming in your hand. The jingle bells of the Salvation Army ringing as you go shopping, turkey and dressing, the first snow flurries. Carefully picking out the yearly family ornament, Colin's Christmas program at school, and decorating cookies. Watching television with Jer after Colin goes to bed with only the twinkle of the Christmas tree to light the room. Cracker cookies, chocolate pie, the smell of candy canes. Christmas cards littering the front of the fridge, finding an extra ugly holiday sweater to wear to the Turners, giant batches of homemade cinnamon rolls spread all over my counter tops. Watching all the Charlie Brown specials, making the first batch of Chex Mix for the season while we watch Polar Express, and cuddling with Jer for our annual viewing of "Love Actually". Flickering Jack-O-Lanterns on the front porch, the Cowboys on Thanksgiving, tubes of wrapping paper stacked in my closet. Watching all of this through the innocence of Colin's eyes...THIS is what I see when I open that door. I am standing at the precipice and every perfect memory for this year is ahead of me. For a few brief days at the beginning of October, I get to revel in the possibility that this year might be the best holiday season yet. In what will end up feeling like the blink of an eye, it will be January and I will be starting the journey all over again. But right now, it is time for the fun to begin!

We had our first real cold front on Sunday and we ended up having the best morning ever. We have been suffering through a major drought and poor Colin was literally beside himself to see the rain when he woke up. It was like he was seeing it for the first time! He immediately requested his raincoat, boots and umbrella and ran out in it to play. It was pouring and his boots immediately filled with water, so he took them off. He was soaked to the bone and having more fun than I could ever have imagined. I sat in the garage with my camera and played around with it while Colin was busy playing. I ended up with the most amazing shots, as you can see! He played for over an hour in the downpour and I asked him at one point if he was too cold...it was around 65 degrees and he was soaked. I LOVED his response; he said, "Mom, I AM COLD! I am COLD and WET and I love it!". Only a Texan child at the end of a brutal summer could come up with that line. It is lucky for him that I recently watched the "Mythbusters" episode about wet and cold not being able to make you sick. He's going to have a lot more fun since that old wives tale got debunked. :-) While he wasn't paying attention to me, I managed to catch these close-up shots that make me melt. You can even see the little water droplets perched on his nose! These shots capture Colin the way I think of him...thoughtful, inquisitive and constantly pondering things that I probably can't even imagine. He is so beautiful and I love him so much that it hurts sometimes. With a start like this, I can't help but feel that we are going to have an amazing fall to remember.

It's FALL, Ya'll!

2011-09-28T21:22:00.003-05:00

It is official...the endless summer of 2011 is finally over. We are still alive. Sure, it was 95 degrees here this afternoon, but it's not summer. And that means something! For the past few weeks, I have been ~~wasting time~~ keeping busy on Pinterest looking at fall decoration crafts. I finally decided to bite the bullet and try to do some seasonal stuff on my own and I am pretty stinking proud of myself!! First of all, I am not crafty. At all. I know what I love, but I can't ever seem to duplicate things on my own. I cook. That's what I do. Anyway...Pinterest started making me believe that even I could accomplish some of the cute seemingly simple stuff out there. So I made a trip to Hobby Lobby and also used some of my own stuff and came up with some inexpensive decorations that I made BY MYSELF! Yep, this post is all about patting myself on the back. :-)

Let's start by discussing what an asset Ferris Mewler is to decorating. He is clearly not one to miss a photo op. I call this "Cat Who Bites in Fall".

So, here is my first Pinterest project and I LOVE IT! I filled mason jars with candy corn, stuck little LED lights in the center and tied twine and leaves to it. Super cheap and Colin and I did the whole project together, which he adored. WIN!

Next, I just stuck some random fall berry and flower sticks that I found into my usual vase that sits on the side table. I got a bunch of cheap ribbon and used it to tie the bow...instant autumn. Normally, I would be scared to add orange touches to a blue vase, but I think it works. I am proud of myself for thinking outside the box. ;-)

I am SUPER excited over this one...my entry way. I MADE THAT WREATH!! I feel like I need an "Amen". This is stuff that my mom is WONDERFUL at doing and I have always wanted to make stuff like this. I feel like I channeled her today. :-) It was so easy! $4 wooden wreath, ribbon and a couple of those sticks of leaves. Throw a couple of grocery store pumpkin underneath, and I am good to go.

Another view, since I am having so much fun bragging at the moment.

Finally, the mantle. I can't believe that I did that on my own. I wish I could have gotten a better shot, but it was hard to photograph with the evening light and the mirrors that I have on either wall. I bought plain glass vases and then created the flower arrangements with little grocery store pumpkins, silk leaves and simple bows that I made. I added leaves and pumpkins to the mantle and stuck a couple of our frames back up there. I kept seeing the vases filled with pumpkins on Pinterest and it turned out just as cute as the ones I saw! YEA!

Last but not least, I had a lot of candy corn and jars, so I made these, too. I am going to pick up more of those little LED lights soon and light these up all over the place. They glow so pretty with all the orange and will be awesome for Halloween night.

So, there you have it...proof positive that Pinterest has taken over my life. :-) Have I mentioned how much I love this season?!

Chocolate Breakfast Bribery

2011-09-21T15:27:00.004-05:00

I have recently put together a recipe that I want to share with everyone...and it is totally random. I feel the need to share this information because (for the moment), it is changing my life! So Colin does not eat. EVER. He actually likes lots of foods, but he is just not ever hungry...or so he says. He eats like a bird and grazes all day long, with two bites of something here or there. The pediatrician is not worried about his skinny self, so I have not stressed out about it too much. One thing that does bother me is breakfast. Colin is not an early morning eater at all, usually preferring to eat no earlier 10am, with the exception of some apple juice. I am having a hard time getting any food inside him before school and that bothers me to no end! So, I came up with this idea a few days ago and tried it out...and it WORKED! Everyone probably already does this, but I just now figured it out. :-) I bought tubes of Pillsbury Crescent Rolls, which now come in little 4 packs, so I can make small batches without wasting. I lay out the triangles of dough and then spread a thin layer of Nutella on top. I also get about 10-12 chocolate chips and sit them at the large end of the triangle. Then roll them up like you always do and VOILA!, you have chocolate crescent rolls! Bake them at 375 for about 12 minutes. In the last 5 minutes, I brush the tops with a bit of butter and sprinkle sugar on top. It makes them look much prettier and Colin loves the sugar crunch on top...that is actually what convinced him to try these. HA! Anyway, he is obviously a big chocolate fan, and he loves these! He eats them up!! I know this is not exactly a "healthy breakfast", but Colin is all skin and bones, so I am super excited to have him eat some calories for a change. The awesome thing about these rolls is that you can make a TON of varieties and make them as healthy as you want. I have done Nutella and sliced strawberries, ham and cheese, scrambled egg, cheese and sausage, and even just peach jam! If it is baked into the middle of a crescent, Colin is into it...at least at the moment. You never know with this kid. It takes zero time to roll stuff into that dough and stick it in the oven. I love it! Also, just as a heads up, I originally tried it with just the chocolate chips inside and while Colin liked them, they were kind of dry and he basically just ate around the chocolate inside and left the crescent. I tried Nutella spread over the whole triangle and THEN adding the chips and that is seriously amazing. There is gooey chocolate through the whole thing and Colin doesn't leave a crumb behind. We always have a giant tub of Nutella laying around, so that has been a main ingredient. I am going to be getting creative in the next few weeks and seeing what other combos I can come up with for the insides. I am going to keep milking this for all it is worth before he decides he no longer likes crescent rolls. ;-) I told you it was random! Here is a picture from this morning:

Ten Years Ago

2011-09-11T06:00:00.003-05:00

At the end of August 2001, I accepted my dream job...a charter sales rep position for Atlantic Aviation out of Teterboro, the private airport for New York City. Atlantic Aviation sits 12 miles from midtown Manhattan, just over the George Washington Bridge. I will never forget when my new boss showed me my desk...it faced the window and my view was the NYC skyline . I had worked in private aviation and charter for years at that point and had worked for a prominent "New York Area Operator" before, but at a smaller airport further from the city. Actually working in Teterboro was where the real action was...it was the pinnacle of private aviation and I wanted more than anything to succeed there. I was so excited the day they offered me the position that I could hardly contain myself. This little Texan was going to charter jets around the world with NYC as my backdrop. Needless to say, I was thrilled.

I had various company indoc days and met with the Chief Pilot and Director of Maintenance on Monday, September 10, 2001. At the time, I was living with my good friend April while I looked for my own apartment. I don't remember what we did that night because in those last moments of innocence, we didn't know we would have the next day imprinted on our souls forever. I was scheduled to go to work on Tuesday, September 11th. I was training that whole week in preparation to take over my position officially on Monday. That Tuesday, I didn't have to be there until noon for a lunch meeting and then training through the evening. I was also still helping April (who ran the charter ops for Jer's company) and going in to work with her. I woke up that morning leisurely and I remember every single tiny moment that happened. It actually unsettles me to think about it because I can still see the creases in the bedspread around me (a vintage looking patchwork quilt full of pinks and blues), the bedside table full of make-up, the shaggy cat at my feet. I sat up in bed and, as usual, flipped the television set on. I was still under the covers a few minutes later and April was standing in the bathroom on my right hand side, blow drying her hair. I can see it perfectly in my minds eye. The news cut to a breaking story. Video was playing of an airplane hitting the World Trade Center. In that first moment, it was just grainy local footage of what looked like a small plane going in one of the windows. Keeping in mind that I worked in aviation, chartered airplanes and dealt with pilots on a daily basis, my very first thought was, "Oh my God...some idiot in a Cessna seriously just managed to crash himself into a building.". I called out that exact line to April, who couldn't hear me over the hairdryer. I waved my hand to get her attention and she switched the dryer off. I said, "You are not going to BELIEVE what this pilot just did! Get in here! There's not even any weather!! How the hell do you run into a building in the city!? ". She scooted into the room and sat down next to me on the bed, wearing a terry cloth robe and half a head of wet hair. We kept watching the news unfold and began debating on whether the guy had instrument ratings and what kind of plane he was flying. We shook our heads and talked about pilots with too much money who would fly solo when they clearly weren't ready. We wondered how many people were hurt around the windows and how they would possibly move the body of the aircraft out of the building. We were backed up on pillows together and April was calling her boss to see if he saw it when the second plane hit. Then it was all over. We stopped talking and just stared at the screen. Space and time stood still. I can see the walls of the entertainment center, the buttons on the TV, the white lace curtains to my left and the bright lights of the bathroom to my right. The whole moment is simply frozen inside me. We had no idea what was going on, but we knew New York City, we knew airplanes and we knew pilots. We knew that our universe was suddenly upside down. Without speaking, April went downstairs to call her mom from the home phone. I picked up my cell and called my dad. It was an hour earlier in Texas and he was alone in his office. He answered the phone with, "This is Daddy!" like he always does when he sees my number. I remember that I couldn't get the words out for a split second and then all I could manage was, "Daddy. Airplanes are flying into the WTC". He said, "WHAT?" and I repeated myself. He said, "Chalna, where are you??". "Not there" was my response...I assured him that I was safe at April's house and we got off the phone. I remember the terror building inside me like a fire. We had airplanes in the air, 3 or 4 crews out on trips at that moment. That meant that my friends were unaccounted for...flying in a sky that appeared to be dropping airplanes into buildings. Jeremy, who was my boyfriend at the time, was at recurrent training in Delaware with one of our other pilots. During training, they are locked away in classrooms and wouldn't know what was happening outside. I left him several voicemails. The rest of the morning is a nightmarish blur. It took hours to account for our crews that were in the air at the time. They were having to land in random places around the country after ATC ordered everyone out of the sky. I was sick to my stomach as we paced around April's office and watched the news unfold while we waited for our boys to land and check in. We reserved hotel rooms in their various cities, where they were stuck for 2 days, if I remember correctly. We cried a lot. I was overjoyed when Jer finally called...just to hear the sound of his voice was amazing that day. Over at my new office in NYC, a lot of people were already in the office when it happened. All the bridges into the city were shut down immediately and nobody in my office could get home. Everyone at the airport was basically stranded. Most of my co-workers were forced to spend the night on the office floor. Obviously, I couldn't make it in for my noon meeting and I remember being so glad that I wasn't there but guilty for feeling the relief. It feels like it was the longest day in my life. I imagine it will feel that way to me forever. I was paralyzed with fear and dread and it felt like something died inside me. It's so hard to put into words. It happened in my beautiful city and the vehicles for destruction were airplanes flown by pilots...my whole world and everything important to me seemingly coming down around me. It was too close to home. My career, my best friends, the love of my life...all in aviation right there where it happened. I felt like I had to remind myself to breathe that day. NYC - where my dreams came true, where my career took off, where I spent my Saturday nights, where I got lost all the time and honked at every 5 minutes. Where I met clients for lunch and watched Rent over and over again. Where I learned that I could make something of myself. Where I ate real Chinese food and went to bars with unmarked doors. All of this weighed on me that day and I felt like the terrorists attacked me personally. Everyone in that area did. It gives me chills up and down right now as I type. That feeling took a long time to let go of.

I will never ever forget the moment when our pilots came home. I can't explain the fear in the beginning when we didn't know where they were and who was hijacking planes. Because of air traffic being completely shut down, we weren't able to see them immediately. April and I were waiting for them on the tarmac when the owner of our company and his co-pilot landed, another one right behind them with two more of our guys flying. It was dusk and the sun was going down. We ran out to the tarmac, not even waiting for them to shut down the engines, and flung ourselves at them. All of the people that worked at the FBO came out and the entire group of us stood out there by the plane, hugging and crying and holding on to each other. The strangest part was that we didn't say anything. Nobody in the whole crowd said a word. We just embraced each other and thanked God that everyone was accounted for. It was a moment that will live inside me for the rest of my life. It could have just as easily been one of them and we all knew it.

I went back to work, of course. Life had to go on. The first days were horrible. People that I worked with lost friends and loved ones. The smoke continued to billow skyward for weeks. I ended up switching my desk around so that I was not looking directly out my window all day long. My view, all day every day, was Ground Zero burning. It was a constant reminder that nothing was okay anymore. Absolutely every single thing about my job changed that day. There is a clear "before" and "after" in aviation, especially in New York. Every single morning, I could not drive into our parking lot without having my trunk searched by police. They checked every vehicle that entered our facility, 24 hours a day. If you left for lunch and came back, they checked you again. I even got to know the different police officers and would greet them by name. They used to make fun of my messy trunk and I actually starting keeping the car clean so that the search was quicker. In the beginning, we had armed Marines on patrol in my office 24/7. Fully uniformed Marines with giant machine guns that hung at their sides. They were everywhere. The sad part about that is that we loved it. Nothing about our jobs seemed safe anymore and it was so easy to get yourself in a panic. Our front doors led directly out onto the ramp, where the private jets board passengers. I found myself searching every face that walked by and wondering if the person was going to hijack our planes. It felt sort of like a traumatic stress disorder...you were constantly wondering if you were safe. The fierce looking Marines on patrol made me feel better. We had all sorts of new rules. You couldn't go out onto the ramp without airport identification and the port authority had to do a background check before you could get it. If you left your badge at home, you were going back to get it. Passengers for trips had to be walked outside by someone with an ID, even if the airplane was in plain view right in front of the doors. Marines, and later police, would stop you as soon as you walked out the door. All passengers had to be checked against the brand new, and now infamous, no-fly list. The list was updated by the Department of Defense constantly and each and every passenger had to be checked against it before all flights. We had to include the information on all the trip sheets we made (those are the formal itinerary sheets that the pilots take) and label which revision of the list we had used. If another revision came out after we checked passengers, you had to go back and do it again. Private flights were very laid back before...the closest thing to a terminal was our sliding doors that led to the ramp. Your jet picked you up right there. Pilots would shake your hand as you entered and then just take off. Now they had to check ID's and passengers had pat downs and luggage checks. Everything was different. We quickly adapted to the police and military presence, but the smoke was impossible to get used to. The smoke rising daily from the skyline was the most scarring part for me. I can still see it perfectly.

There were good moments that came out of the destruction. The feelings of love and unity and patriotism were absolutely overwhelming in NYC during that time. As you walked down the street, you could feel an almost palpable gravity between you and the strangers that you passed. It was like we were one big family, tied together in this horrible tragedy. People hugged more. We kept our flags out. Folks would randomly run up to the Marines in our lobby and shake their hands and bring them notes of thanks. And forget it if you saw a fireman in those days. These were our heroes...like angels that came to life in front of you. People would stop in the street and clap and salute. Sometimes it was hard not to cry when you saw them, even months later. Ground Zero was a whole other story. I had meetings that required I pass the area several times in those first months and it was horrific. My sisters came to stay with me during the following spring break from college and we took them down there. They got a great picture with two of the firemen that were working on the scene...still all those months later.

On the 6 month anniversary of the attacks, the city lit the Tribute in Light, which looked like twin beacons of light that shone where the buildings once stood. It stayed lit for several days and that is another sight that I will never forget. I remember standing on the ramp and staring in awe at the lights. It was so beautiful and so sad. I was 24 years old that day, a young professional just starting out...when life loomed in front of me with endless possibility and every day was an adventure. I grew up more in 2001 than any other year of my life. It sometimes feels like I went from being a girl to a woman in just that one single day. When you are young, you think that nothing can hurt you. I was invincible. After 9/11/01, I realized just how foolish that notion had been. Somehow I am waking up today and it is ten years later. I have a husband and a son and a beautiful life. I live in Texas. But today, my heart is back at Atlantic Aviation, 12 miles from Manhattan. I will never ever forget.

This paperweight sat on my desk at Atlantic and continued to sit on every desk I have had since then. It stays with me always.

Back to School!

2011-09-09T18:08:00.001-05:00

Yesterday was the first day of school!! It was a GREAT day! I can't believe how different it was from last year...Colin has grown by leaps and bounds in the past 12 months! He was all smiles in the morning as we got dressed and ready. Jer was home, so he came with us for our inaugural donut breakfast of the 2011-2012 school year. :-) Colin was in such good spirits, despite mentioning several times that he was going to miss Miss Gina "soooo much". He was a little bit worried about not being with her, but overall he was excited and happy. He actually posed for pictures and walked happily into school. We got all the way to his new room and as I was hugging him goodbye, he got upset and wouldn't let go. Miss Vicki had to physically take him into the room while we made a run for it, but this year I was prepared for his reaction and didn't get upset. I knew it would be hard for him at first as he got back into the routine. The morning was sunny and beautiful with temps in the 70's (which I consider coat weather at this point) and I immediately took myself out for a pedicure while Jer ran his own errands. It was the best hour that I have had in a long time! Jer and I met for lunch afterwards at Zoe's Kitchen and actually ate OUTSIDE on the PATIO because the weather was NICE. It was a miracle!!

The real miracle came when I picked the little man up. As I walked up to the room, he was sitting happily in front of Miss Vicki listening to a story. Miss Mechelle met me at the door and told me that he was amazing all day! He was upset when I left, but he immediately calmed down and was cheerful and having fun all day. When he spotted me at the door, he got up and flung himself into my arms and then immediately yelled, "Close your eyes, Mom!! I have a surprise!". He then led me to his art projects from the day and showed them to me while literally jumping up and down with excitement. Miss Vicki came out to say goodbye and tell me how wonderful he was. She said, "Hey Colin, will you just run in here on Monday and not get upset?" and Colin said YES and gave her a high five! We shall see what actually happens on Monday, but it was still a positive sign regardless. :-) As we walked to the car, he held my hand and talked 90 miles an hour about his day...the different door they took to the playground, getting to use the "big kid" equipment, their class mascot (Gus, the gator), which friends from last year are in his class, what stories they read. I remember last year so well...I picked up a sullen little boy who wouldn't talk to me or let me touch him and refused to even discuss school for the first month. Now here I was barely containing him because he was so happy and excited to tell me everything. He loves school and I sure hope it stays that way! The routine of the day seems to do him so much good. He was an absolute joy last night and that continued into today. He was particularly animated today and has been much easier to deal with. I can't believe that I already notice a change! Our summer was so horrible...for the last month, we haven't even wanted to go to the pool because of the heat. Colin has been cooped up in our house or doing the same handful of things over and over and I think he was bored out of his mind and probably very tired of the sound of my voice. This week, we had a miracle of a cool down and Colin got to ride his scooter at the park and go for walks around the block. Then we added school to the mix and he seems like a new man. I am excited for next week, when we have our first full week of school and get the schedule down. It is going to be a great fall, I can already tell!

Colin making silly faces as we pulled up to school...already a VERY good sign! :-)

My BIG four year old boy outside the school!

Standing at his classroom door...he is going to be one cute Gator!

In other news, today was our first visit with Colin's new interim occupational therapist, Mary Sue. Miss Cheryl is on maternity leave for the next 2 months and while Colin was nervous at first today, he warmed right up to Mary Sue. She, of course, fell in love with him immediately. It's the dimples. :-)

He Says, She Says

2011-09-02T18:20:00.000-05:00

I must preface this by saying that this conversation started completely out of the blue as Colin was going to the bathroom. My favorite part of our conversations is how they generally start out of thin air. So he calls out to me from the bathroom:

Colin: Mom, when you do one thing before you do something else, why is that called "first"?
Me: That is just the word for it.
Colin: Who made up that word?
Me: It's just a word in the English language.
Colin: Who made up the English language?
Me: (googles "history of the english language" and begins to rub temples) Honey, that is a long and complicated answer.
Colin: (thinks momentarily) Do I get to add words to English?
Me: Probably so.

It's SEPTEMBER!!!

2011-09-01T21:16:00.000-05:00

I have never been so excited for a month to end. August 2011 is FINALLY. OVER. I have heard rumblings about it being the hottest month in Texas history. It was absolutely miserable! In celebration of September, I plan to go buy every fall themed Yankee candle ever made. I am going to start putting out pumpkins. I am going to pack up all of our worn out bathing suits and beach towels and put them out of my sight. I am going to start assorted fall decorating crafts from Pinterest. I may even put on a sweater and light the fire place. It is only going to be 100 degrees tomorrow, so I should be prepared. ;-) Honestly, I am beside myself that September is here. I have already promised myself that I will not complain one time about the weather this winter. I will remain happy that no matter what, it is no longer summer!

Colin had his "meet the teacher" on Tuesday and it went pretty well, all things considered. He was not happy about going, but he didn't complain about getting dressed or leaving the house. He walked calmly into the school and just as we got to his new classroom, he stopped and wouldn't go inside. This was really not a shock or big deal...there were 21 kids and ALL of their parents crammed into this tiny room and it was loud and crazy. That is not Colin's scene for sure. I tried several times to get him inside the room and he told me, "Mommy, my body is feeling too shy to go in. I need to stay out here until I can stop feeling like this". I am so proud of him for being able to verbalize those feelings to me and understand what is going on inside. His teachers are Miss Vicki and Miss Mechelle and they seemed wonderful. Miss Vicki actually teaches chapel, so Colin got to know her last year and already likes her a lot. She clearly already knew all about him and she walked outside into the hallway to talk to him. I loved that she didn't push him to come inside the classroom and respected that he needed to wait outside. She has a very happy and effusive personality and obviously loves what she does. She talked at length about what she wanted the kids to achieve this year and the "pre-K" class is going to be just like real school. I am excited to see how Colin reacts to a more strict learning environment! I am also excited to get to know Mechelle and Vicki and I was the first person on the sign-up sheet to be an official "Room Mom". I think it is going to be an awesome year. As long as I can get Colin into the classroom. :-)

I went to the doctor yesterday to get lab results and check my weight loss progress. I am happy to report that I have lost 8 lbs in the last 3 weeks! YEA! That is a pretty good start considering that I went on vacation during that time. I did get some surprising news about alcohol from him that I didn't realize...drinking alcohol actually turns off all fat burning. Your body won't start burning fat again for up to 72 hours after a night of drinking. That is NOT good, considering that I have a glass of red wine almost every night. He told me to avoid it completely while I am really trying to lose. I didn't realize it was so detrimental to my diet and I hope that cutting it out helps me lose faster. What a pain! I guess those french martinis during girls night on Monday were not a good idea. ;-)

I have more to report, but it is getting late and the latest episode of "Most Eligible Dallas" is calling my name from the DVR. I would probably be a better person without Bravo shows, but I wouldn't be nearly as happy. ;-)

He Says, She Says

2011-08-28T19:27:00.003-05:00

Conversations with Colin

Colin: Mom, does your body use magic to turn food into pee and poop?
Me: Uh, no...your body breaks down food into energy and then turns whatever is left over into waste. It is a scientific process. *smiles happily because that sounded good*
Colin: What IS the process? How does it happen?
Me: Well, it's a pretty long process...I couldn't tell you exactly how it happens... *smile falters as Colin yet again stumps me*
Colin: You should go order me a book on that. I'm sure they have them online.

I'm on Amazon as we speak.

Police Officer Colin

2011-08-26T21:19:00.003-05:00

I took this video tonight with my phone. The quality is horrible (lighting!?!) and my voice beside the phone is WAY too loud and you can barely hear Colin. Cell phone video is not great. All that being said, this a very good representation of what I do all day long. This is Colin playing police man and ~~ordering me around~~ including me in the action. If you can handle the loud and rather annoying beginning, the last minute of the video is the best part. I love my adorable boy. :-)

Little Things

2011-08-26T11:54:00.005-05:00

I have a million things to do, most of which involve cleaning my house, and so I decided to blog. I am getting almost nothing accomplished at the moment besides reading about cooking, shopping for cooking ingredients, and...wait for it...cooking. My friend Eren told me about this website called Pinterest and let me tell you, it has totally sucked me in. At first, I was a bit confused by it. I played around with it for a couple of hours and then forgot about it. Then, another friend posted herself rocking some new curls in her hair that she set without heat. I asked where she got the idea and, you guessed it, Pinterest. I went back to the site a few days ago and have been hooked ever since. When you join the site, you start "pinning" things you like to your virtual bulletin boards. Then you can see all your friends pins, as well as search for anything and everything you can think of. I searched "brunch" this morning and ended up with ideas for everything from table centerpieces to bacon and egg muffins. I now have a million things that I want to do, from buying a fantastic purple sweater for fall to craft projects for Colin to cooking balsamic glazed ribs. It is out of control. The food is especially too much for me...no shock there. I had about 10 food blogs saved to my favorites and now I have too many to count. I see all these beautiful dishes, click on the picture and voila!...I am taken to yet another food blog that I didn't know about before. I love this site and there is a good chance that I will end up trying to build my own shelving unit as well as prepare 400 new dishes. **sigh** I really shouldn't have signed up for this.

One of the ideas I got off the site was the "sock bun curls". The idea involves wrapping your slightly damp ponytail around a rolled up sock and sleeping in it. You are supposed to wake up with fantastic curls. I tried it last night and it didn't really work for me, but I wasn't shocked. My hair is very thick and very curly/frizzy. Without heat, you really don't want to see my hair. ;-) I rolled it up in the sock and this morning, I did have some nice waves, but it was still mostly frizzy. I pulled out my flat iron and fixed the frizz in the front and then used a curing iron on the top layers of my hair. It looks beautiful now. I will say that it only took me about 5 minutes to do the fixes this morning, so the sock bun clearly saved me some time. I didn't have to curl or flat iron the back part of my hair and it does look pretty, although a little "fluffy". I can see that girls with naturally smooth and silky hair would love this. If I didn't have all the inherent frizz, I would have probably been satisfied with the result. As for me, I need heat. LOTS of high heat. I also have very layered long hair and the top layers didn't curl at all because most of that hair wasn't hanging down into the ponytail. This method would work best for folks with long, mostly one length hair. And there is my review for the week. ;-)

Colin has been his usual adorable, precocious self this week. While I was cooking dinner a couple of days ago, he asked me for an appetizer. He seriously used the word "appetizer". He has been collecting books from the "Let's Read and Find Out Science, Stage 2" series. Now, these books are for older kids in primary school, but Colin loves them. Jer brought one home from his trip to Washington, D.C. and he has been hooked ever since. We now have about 12 books, on everything from energy, forces, gravity, weather, electricity, space, friction, solids/liquids/gases, the human skeleton and bodily functions/reflexes. I have been letting Colin pick out the titles and they are always the science ones. I bought one on volcanoes to give to Hayden for his birthday, but Colin caught sight of it before I was able to wrap it up. He brought it to me, all excited that I bought a book from his collection. I didn't have the heart to tell him that it wasn't his, so I let him have it. The funny part is that we read it last night and he HATED IT. I got two pages in and he announced that it was boring. I love this for several reasons. First of all, the other books are easily what I consider "boring". It is actually hard for me to keep my eyes open when I read them to him each night. Just one excerpt from his current favorite:

Water is a special type of matter that can change easily from a liquid to a
gas. It can also change easily from a liquid to a solid and then back
again. When matter changes form, we say it is changing its state. A
change in temperature is what usually causes a change in its state.

For the first few weeks that we read these books, I remained in shock that he seriously wanted to listen to this stuff. Finally the shock wore off and I assumed that he would like any of the books in the series. It blew my mind that he hated the volcano book immediately. It showed me that he has already developed a major interest in specific science subjects and he knows what he is doing when picking out the titles. He is not interested in volcanoes and therefore the book was boring to him. But he will gladly listen to me drone on about electrons, atoms and matter. That just blows my mind. It also reminds me that getting Colin to pay attention and learn when presented with material he is not interested in is going to be a long term battle. You wouldn't believe how fast that volcano book was sent off the bed. The good news is that Hayden is now getting his book back. ;-) I asked Colin to help me clean the playroom last weekend and his answer was, "Mommy, I would be delighted to!". It was so cute...I have no clue where he heard that phrase. He is also very into public service people of any kind, as usual. He was playing police man last night (complete with hat, badge and whistle) while Jer and I were sitting on the couch. He told us that he was going to direct traffic and he proceeds to stand in the living room, whistle in mouth, and holds his hands out clearly stopping one side of traffic and waving the other one on. He was stoic and did not make a sound...totally in his own world. Then he blows the whistle and yells, "SLOW DOWN!" and then keeps directing. Jer and I were literally crying with laughter on the couch. We were holding our noses and mouths, trying not to erupt in guffaws. I had tears rolling down my cheeks; for some reason, it was one of the funniest things I have ever seen. :-) This morning, I had to do bloodwork at my doctors office to check my cholesterol. etc. Colin went with me and when the nurse started to do it, he asked if he could watch. She approved and he jumped onto the exam table with me and bent all the way over my arm, with his face just inches away, to watch. The nurse looked up at me worriedly and asked if he would be okay to watch the blood. I assured her that it was not a problem. She took 5 vials of blood while Colin watched in silent awe. He even asked to hold the vials so that he could "check them out" afterwards. This kid...I swear.

Next Tuesday is "meet the teacher" at Colin's school. I am more than a little nervous about how the switch to a new class will go, but I am staying positive and thinking on the bright side. He keeps telling me that he will miss Gina and Keli and that he can't go to another class without them, but I think he will shake it off quickly once he sees how much fun the 4 year olds have. :-) I am praying! School is starting on September 7th and I am truthfully very excited. Having a couple of mornings a week to get things done really helps my sanity! I miss getting to clean up, vacuum (Colin has real trouble with that dang vacuum noise!), plan our menus, grocery shop and get the random errand accomplished without a child in tow. I also miss temperatures under 100 degrees, so the start of school = fall coming = THANK GOD.

Our Giant Beach Vacation!

2011-08-17T19:16:00.004-05:00

Our beach vacation has come and gone and I will absolutely never EVER forget it. I had to pinch myself on more than one occasion during this trip to make sure that I was really getting to do this...a giant beach house with my best friends in the whole world and my precious family. The girls and I mentioned to each other that we wonder if our boys have any idea how lucky they are...getting to take these amazing trips with all their buddies in tow. It still amazes me that I have this big group of girlfriends to share the journey of motherhood with, that our husbands all turned out to be great friends, that our children are best friends and that we all have each other. This trip would seem overwhelming on paper...18 adults and 18 young children sharing one house. Yet it wasn't too much to handle because we all know each others children and help each other always. I knew that there were lots of eyes on Colin and that he was safe...if it really "takes a village", then we are the perfect one! And we literally were a village! SO many people!

We decided to leave on Thursday and spend the night in a hotel halfway to Surfside. The 6 hour drive was do-able in one day, but we were ready to get out of town and wanted to extend our adventure. We also wanted Colin to be as rested as possible upon arrival at the beach house. Jer's hotel points paid for our stay in the metropolis of Buffalo, TX. It was a hole in the wall, but the new hotel had an indoor pool, which Colin thought was amazing. He thought it was the coolest thing getting to stay in that hotel! On the way down, we stopped in Corsicana at the Collin Street Bakery. We used to eat there all the time when I was little...it was on our way to my grandparents house in Arkansas and we also stopped there during family trips to Galveston in the summers and then to see my sisters at Texas A&M. I have a lot of memories there and having Colin there with me was so special. It took my breath away when I saw him walking around picking out cookies just like I used to do.

On Friday morning, we hit the road for Surfside Beach. It is about 40 miles south of Galveston and the drive was no problem. The beach house turned out to be perfect for our big group with enough bedrooms for each family to have their own and plenty of bathrooms, too. The beach was totally private to the homes there and the view was spectacular. We were all blown away by how perfect everything turned out, especially considering that none of us had ever been there and only seen pictures online. We all managed to arrive within minutes of each other and the boys all ran straight out onto the beach. We spent that first evening on the beach with each other and then ordered pizzas for dinner. The best part of the trip were the nights. After we all put the kiddos to bed (which went surprisingly easy!), we got to park ourselves out on the huge deck, drinking boat drinks and laughing hysterically. The sound of the waves crashing below while the lights of all the beach houses twinkled merrily around us...the faint sounds of music lofting from the other decks...the feel of the wind in my hair...the sounds of all my best friends laughing and talking...it was all amazing. I was there with the love of my life, my precious boy and my best friends. Perfection!

Colin's pirate party was absolutely adorable and all four of us went crazy with decorations and pirate gifts. Kayrene got the boys hats, pj's and personalized shirts and Kim made pajama pants with matching pirate shirts. They were the cutest group of boys you have ever seen! I was very impressed that Colin did not get under the table when everyone sang "Happy Birthday". It was a miracle! We grilled burgers and hot dogs and then everyone went back down to the beach before bedtime. It could not have gone better and I certainly don't know how we will ever top a pirate party on an actual beach. Good lord, this is one lucky boy!

Colin has a new anxiety as of late, which is a serious fear of getting a sunburn. He overheard my family talking about a bad sunburn that my nephew got and ever since then, he is terrified that he will get one. Despite literally saturating him in sunblock, he still stand frozen at the door, chanting that he doesn't have enough on and he will burn. We found that we can calm him down if he wears a swim shirt, but yours truly forgot to pack it. Needless to say, we had some tough moments over that one. Saturday afternoon was a beast, but he doesn't stress about late afternoons, so we had some great evenings on the beach. On Sunday, we planned ahead and took him to the local aquarium that had a touch tank while the other kiddos swam. Colin LOVED getting to touch all the sea creatures and it worked out great. When we got back to the house, several of the dads had taken the other boys on the same trip, so Colin got to spend the rest of the afternoon hanging out with the moms and babies, playing assorted games that involved making Lindsey order pizza over and over while he delivered it. :-) He loves hanging out with the grown-ups, so the day was just up his alley. At one point, he asked Lindsey very seriously, "What can I get you?" and after she ordered her pizza, he looked at her baby boy Nolan and asked, "And how about for the little guy?". It was hilarious. Sunday night was another amazing evening with our friends that included a genius game of "glow stick golf" that our friend Nathan came up with. His family has been playing it for years and he brought glow sticks for everyone, as well as glowing circles that he set up as the tee boxes all along the beach. He tied cords to each glow stick and we wrote our names on them. We broke off into teams and took turns throwing our sticks to the tee. It was so much fun and the sight of all the glow sticks swinging around in the air up and down the beach was seriously awesome. It was a night that I won't soon forget! The only real drama of the trip came that last night when the air conditioning went out upstairs, where all but 2 of the families were sleeping. We noticed it when we got back from golfing and it quickly turned into a sauna up there. We were all worried about the kids waking up and where we would put them. Jer and I stripped the comforter off the bed and thankfully we had a ceiling fan that we turned up to high. We slept there with Colin and miraculously, he never woke up. The air started working again in the wee hours of the morning, so we managed to get more comfortable and catch a few hours of real sleep. We were happy to get up on Monday morning and head back to our own beds and crazy pets, but we were sad that the weekend was over so fast. It was so much fun and I absolutely can't wait for the next one! We have started going somewhere twice a year as a group and we talked about putting picture books together for each year and collecting them...won't these be amazing memories to look back on?! I love it! Here are just a few of the hundreds of pictures.
All the kiddos! (Well, almost...babies Ruthie and Nolan are not in this shot) Can you believe that we managed that group?! :-) The families on the trip were the Janaks, Turners, Sheltons, Roberts, McGeheartys, Cederwalls, Parkers, Snopeks and, of course, the Shaffers! :-)

Our four pirates, Ryan, Colin, Hayden and Jack! The birthday boys in their matching garb...ahoy, matey! I love this picture more than anything!

Helping Colin and Jack open presents

The view of our house from the driveway...ours is the first one on the right.

The night view from our balcony!

Colin and Annelie enjoy the beach!

Sitting with two of my favorite girls, Kimberly and Ruthie!

On the beach with Carrie!

Colin striking a pose...Bryan took most of these pictures and they are SO cute!

I mean, seriously...how cute is this boy?!?!

Colin's first time in the ocean...walking with Daddy!

My little beach bum! He loved playing in the sand and digging for shells and crabs.

Kim's super awesome picture of glow stick golf! I LOVE THIS!

Just a wonderful vacation!

Updates from the Surface of the Sun

2011-08-09T10:29:00.006-05:00

It is still 900 degrees. Let's just get that out of the way. This is the longest summer of all time. And thus concludes the Captain Obvious portion of this post. :-) My first few days back on my strict diet are going pretty well...especially considering that I have already cheated with beer and wine on 2 of the 4 nights! HA! We had a great family night with some of our friends on Saturday and then I had girls night last night at Eren's. You really can't have girls night without wine, so I ate very clean beforehand to save up calories. HA! I honestly already feel better...it feels so good to have a mission again! :-)

Our beach trip is almost here and I can't believe it! We are going to be at the shore from Friday through Monday and I am SO excited. Did you know that the weather forecast calls for high temps that are a full 12 degrees cooler than it is here?! With a sea breeze. I can't wait! I am honestly a little overwhelmed right now with trying to remember everything to pack for our family and all the odds and ends I signed up to bring for everyone else. Between hosting the birthday party and sharing a house with 9 families, I am feeling a little nervous that I don't have all my bases covered. But I know that I will get it figured out and we are going to have so much fun!

Odds and ends this week...

I am growing Colin's hair out. I have kept his hair very short for the past year and I mentally noted after his last cut (a month ago) that I wanted to see it longer. Not like scruffy long, but with some actual hair on top, rather than just the little spikes. He has soft, thick golden brown hair and I suddenly want to see what it would look like a bit longer. We shall see how long this lasts...my pet peeve is an "unkempt" looking kiddo, so if his hair starts looking like a shaggy dog, I may break down and cut it. :-) I figure that I only have a short amount of time left when he will let me decide his haircut, so I am going for the change while I still can.

I woke up this morning with a sore throat and feeling under the weather. This will not come as a surprise to anyone in my family. My signature move since BIRTH is to get sick before something awesome happens, like Christmas or a trip to the beach this weekend. I refuse to be sick. REFUSE. So if you can overdose on Airborne and vitamin C, I am about to experience it.

I am in the throws of a giant debate on what extracurricular activities to sign Colin up for this fall. I am thinking about karate or gymnastics. I even thought about looking into drum or guitar lessons. I don't know if Colin is too young (probably), but he loves music so much and seems so naturally inclined to it. I thought about indoor soccer (we have a great place close by), but I changed my mind. I asked him about it and he said no, so I am not going to push it. I am going to stay away from team sports this fall and let him try other activities that don't require him to battle his social fears. I think karate sounds particularly calming and have a feeling Colin will love it. I have already sent some inquiry emails out to local places, so we shall see.

Colin's occupational therapist, Cheryl, left for China this week to complete the adoption process for a little girl. They have a daughter that is Colin's age from Korea and have been in the process with China for the last 6 years. So, this is big and wonderful news for her! The bad news is that Colin has to switch therapists for the next 3 months while Cheryl is traveling and on maternity leave. She thinks it will be good for him to work with someone new and apparently Mary Sue is very sweet and will be a perfect fit for the little man. His therapy appointment is now on Thursdays at 10:30am. I am actually on my way to the preschool to verify Colin's schedule and teachers for the fall. They start in less than a month, on September 7th. He is going to go 2 days a week again this year and I can't believe that I am already thinking about this! Our school district starts back on the 22nd and I can't wait for the peace and quiet that comes with all these neighborhood hooligans going back full time. :-)

Colin has developed a new obsession - Sesame Street. I feel a little bit stupid admitting this, but he hasn't really watched it much over the years. We used to watch PBS when he was tiny, but he got on a Nick Jr. kick forever ago and I frankly would just forget to turn the channel to PBS. He loves their shows and catches the occasional Super Why or Word World and he ADORES Sid the Science Kid. We have several of those DVD's...Sid is right up Colin's alley. Anyway, for some reason, we never caught Sesame Street and I forgot about it. I stumbled across it in the kids free OnDemand and started it a couple of weeks ago. Colin loves it. He loves it so much, in fact, that he has started laughing like Ernie. Like FOR REAL laughs like Ernie. He has managed to retrain his body to do the classic "hehehehehe" that Ernie does whenever he finds something amusing. It makes me laugh every single time.

That should do it for now...I have to stop stalling and get ready for this trip!

A New Day!

2011-08-06T08:15:00.003-05:00

Well, it is going to be 108 degrees here again today and despite the heat...the endless soul sucking heat...I am having a GREAT day already. My diet from last summer is officially back underway. And I feel awesome already!

A little over 2 months ago, my OB/GYN put me on the mega dose of clomid with metformin. In the days following, I have gained 27 lbs. I am only 4 lbs away from negating my entire weight loss from last year. It has been so sudden...my rings don't fit, my clothes don't fit...all seemingly out of the blue. I didn't have any trouble maintaining my weight until we started this exact dose of meds. It definitely did something strange to my body. I had to go dig the "fat bag" of clothes out of storage two days ago and that woke me up. This is totally unacceptable. This fertility mess is made even more depressing...gaining almost 30 lbs before you even get pregnant is bad news all the way around. I feel like a fat, sad failure. And you know me...I don't do sad. SO...I am chucking the fertility meds for awhile and doing a complete refocus. I went to see my doctor yesterday (the one who did my weight loss program with me last year) and we did bloodwork and labs and a whole workup again. I have dusted off my diet notes, added some good calorie apps to my new phone and reminded myself of my favorite healthy recipes. My doctor cheered me up by reminding me that I know exactly what to do this time and won't be wasting any time learning...I have all the knowledge this time around. I can undo this damage and clear my body of all these crazy meds. I already feel like a new woman. This changed my life last year and it is going to feel so great to get back into that mindset! So, let's get back into those skinny jeans! It shouldn't be a problem because it won't be cool enough to wear them for another ~~million years~~ two months. :-)

She Waits No More

2011-08-03T13:46:00.002-05:00

Well, I broke down and bought the test and I am not pregnant. I knew that I wasn't. And I am just fine. We have a big trip to the beach next week and I plan on drinking lots of margaritas on the shore and having a fantastic time! I almost didn't publish my post from this morning, but this blog is about my life and therefore, why not? Sure, I occasionally throw myself a pity party over this whole mess, but I can't forget about all the gifts in my life. So, I am going to smile today and be okay. Hopefully, I won't be late anymore for no reason! On to next month! Tomorrow is another day! Can I throw out any more cliches? :-) I think that God made me a "glass half full" girl for a reason!

She Waits

2011-08-03T09:14:00.004-05:00

My period should have started yesterday. It didn't. It hasn't started yet today, either. It is 9:14am and I am officially two days late for the first time ever. I am not ever late...I am actually the opposite of late. My period always starts very early, like every 20-23 days. I have spent two years trying to get pregnant and one year on medication because I can't seem to ovulate on my own, which accounts for my short cycles. SO, I am never late. Not ever.

Last month, after 10 months of trying different things, tracking every single day and having bloodwork done monthly, I finally ovulated with a very high dose of Clomid mixed with something called Metformin. I got the phone call in the parking lot of Chick-Fil-A with my mom in the car with me. We were on the way to get lemonade before we started a girls shopping day at Southlake Town Center. To have my mom in town and actually with me when I got the phone call was amazing. It was the first good news phone call that I have ever gotten regarding this process and it felt amazing to hear the nurse sound happy on the phone. I prayed so hard that I was pregnant, but my period showed up right on time, making that cycle a perfect 28 days. I prayed so hard that it would be my month, but it wasn't meant to be. At least I got some good news for a change! This month has been crazy. I was sent to a fertility clinic to have an HSG test, otherwise known as a fallopian tube flush. That was easily the worst part of this whole process. The clinic was oddly quiet and the air was heavy with resignation, hope and sadness all at the same time. There were couples here and there and two women alone like I was. I sat in the dark maroon seat and tried not to cry...just the fact that I was there was overwhelming and the sense of failure settled over me like a cloud. I didn't want to be there. "The Center for Assisted Reproduction" is what they call it. I never want to be there again. The doctors (3 of them!) were very nice and worked quickly and while the test was incredibly painful, it was over fast and brought good news. My tubes work perfectly, no blockages at all, and my uterus is very healthy. They sent me out the door with pictures of my tubes filled up with the dye and I found myself in the parking lot wondering what you do with snapshots of your fallopian tubes. It was an odd moment to be sure. That test was on day 10 of my cycle. I can tell you exactly what day it is at any given time. My entire life seems to run in 24 hour increments. Medication on days 3-7, tubes flushed on day 10, ovulation hopefully around day 14, bloodwork on day 21, then watching each day after that; waiting and knowing that your period is going to show up and you will have to try again...make yourself okay...find your smile...start counting again...day one. Today is day 30. I have never gotten to day 30. I don't know what to do with myself.

I stopped buying pregnancy tests about 6 months ago. I was spending a fortune on them and it made the pain of a negative test even worse....Why did I buy these? I knew better than this! Another $20 down the drain for absolutely no reason...I don't even want to know how much money I have spent over the last few years. I hate the walk to the tests, the ridiculous hope that fills your chest and the voice inside your head that reminds you not to get your hopes up. The debate on whether you want a digital test or if you would rather use the one with the two lines so that you could tilt it up to the light at a million angles trying to detect even a hint of a line. Sometimes I would choose the digital so that I couldn't do that to myself, but the words "not pregnant" that print out over the screen are so ugly that I think squinting my eyes at the lines is less offensive. SO, I bought a pack of what is known as "internet cheapies" in the infertility world. They are pregnancy test strips that are super cheap, only $5 for a pack of 25. Those have made me feel better...less like I am spending money for no reason. I took my last one on day 27, the day before my period was due. I even used first morning urine, just like you are supposed to and it was negative. Always negative. I held it up to different lights, out the window, in front of a flashlight...definitely negative. So I tossed it and went about my day...putting a couple of tampons in my purse and carrying on.

And here we are. Day 30. I know that my period is going to start. I know it. It always starts. This time is going to hurt. It is going to break my heart. Because I am never late, so now I think it might have happened. I am so tired of getting my hopes crushed. I want it so badly that it physically hurts, but I know that no matter how hard I pray, I can't make it so. I know that I should go buy a pregnancy test. I should do it because it might be a miracle and it might say yes and I might pass out from joy. It might be my day, my moment, our dreams finally coming true. The years of wait over with, the endless nights spent laying awake and wondering if Colin might just miss out on siblings gone for good. The cloud of disappointment taking it's leave from my house. The dream coming to reality. But that doesn't ever happen. And when I let myself think it might be true, I get hurt so badly. So I don't want to buy that test. I don't want to do it. I want to wait and let my period start and be proud that I didn't put myself through it. So that is where I am today. Day 30. Waiting. Praying. Not hoping. Hoping so hard.

One Long Week!

2011-07-23T21:26:00.002-05:00

This has been quite a week in our little household! Wednesday was Colin's actual birthday and we had a very busy day. We met our friends to play at The Ark and Colin had a great time, for the most part. He got hit and shoved HARD and on purpose for the first time in his life, which did not go over well. There was a bigger kid there who was a pretty big bully. I happened to look up and catch him beating up on Colin and I felt fire wash over me. It is so strange to experience such a visceral response...my first instinct was to snatch that kid up and hit him back. Of course, I refrained. ;-) Being Colin's mom has taught me not to judge a book by it's cover and he could have been a nice kiddo who has his own set of problems, but man was that hard to watch and deal with calmly! The moment passed quickly when I told Colin that we were heading to his next surprise, Chuck E. Cheese. It is amazing how much he loves that silly place. We had lunch together and spent a good deal of time playing. Then, we just happened to run into Colin's best friend Keaton from school last year! Colin was beside himself with excitement to see him and we plan to have a playdate soon. It was such a blessing to run into them. Colin has been asking about Keaton all summer and I had stupidly forgotten to get his contact info before the school year finished. Now they are reunited!

Here is a pile of Ryan, Jack and Colin at The Ark. They are such wonderful boys!

Colin is all smiles at his birthday lunch!

Showing off some considerable dance moves at Chuck E. Cheese. He clearly takes after me. ;-)
Among all the other loot that he raked in for his 4th birthday, he got his first bike from us as his big present. He was a little nervous at first when he saw it, but he warmed up quick and took it right outside. We didn't stay out there long since it is roughly 300 degrees outside at the moment, but he LOVED IT! We just took it to the pool tonight and I got a little choked up over it. There is Colin, on a bike and wearing a helmet, riding down the sidewalk in front of me. It made him seem so old!

Colin woke up with a horrible cough on Thursday morning at 2:00am...and proceeded to stay awake all night. It was brutal! I was like a walking zombie all day on Thursday and then Friday morning he was up at 4:30 with the same cough, but this time he threw up. Gracious! Oddly enough, he seemed much better after that and has been doing fine ever since...even the cough is gone for the most part. Very strange. Needless to say, I am worn out!

In one last update, we had a very bad experience at the pool tonight. A teenage girl had a major seizure right in front of us. Literally right beside us. She dropped to the pavement and went into the full deal and it seemed to go on forever. I have never seen anything so scary in real life. Her eyes were rolled back and she was seizing so hard and I felt completely powerless. I wished I could help her so much. Now, Colin was right there with us and I didn't know what to do. I tried to get him away, but he was not having it. And here is yet another example of how Colin surprises me constantly. My first thought was, "Oh, no...he is going to lose it over this". Honestly, it scared the fire out of me and I am 34 years old. All the other children at the pool started screaming and crying...each one feeding off the others and everyone getting upset. Colin, however, went calm and stoic. He watched the girl intently and asked me what she was doing. I told him that she was having a seizure and he asked me without taking his eyes off her what that was and how it happens. I didn't have a lot of answers for him, but briefly explained that some illnesses cause seizures. He asked me if she would be okay and I told him she would. People were running around calling 911 and Colin didn't move. He sat on the pool steps and watched everything, asking quiet questions about the police, fire truck and ambulance. He fired off lots of questions about the causes of seizures and wanted to know what the paramedics could do to help her. He informed me that they probably had a shot of something that would help her. :-) I made him get out of the pool in order to avoid being gawkers at the scene of an accident, but Colin was adamant that he stay until the ambulance arrived. He asked me to wrap his towel around him and he perched silently on a chair watching everything happen. I have never seen him so calm. He did ask me if he could ever get a seizure, but once I assured him that he wouldn't have one, he let it go with no fuss. He was all business. It's hard to describe...I expected something like that to scare him, but he wasn't upset in the least. He watched everything the way a scientist would...as though he was absorbing what the process was for this and making mental notes about it. His whole being focused calmly on the situation and again, I pictured him making an excellent doctor. Maybe the ER is his calling. :-)

Obviously, it was an interesting night and I am glad to report that Colin is now sleeping and I am about to be, too! I will be saying an extra prayer for that family tonight.

What a Difference 4 Years Makes!

2011-07-21T08:12:00.003-05:00

The times, they are a changing! :-)

The first shot was right we before we walked out the door on the morning of Halloween 2007. This was during the brief 3 months when I was back at work. The latter is from last night before bed, and although it was taken with Jer's blackberry and it is not the best angle, I still love it. Mainly because my newly minted four year old is absolutely adorable! I love my little family and I am so blessed to have my boys. We have come a long way! :-)

To My Four Year Old

2011-07-20T07:00:00.005-05:00

Dear Colin,

Today, you are four years old. It has been four breathtaking years since I welcomed you into this crazy world and it feels like moments ago...and forever ago, too. It is hard to remember a me without you. You have always amazed me, but this year...you have blown me away. You know how I am and it will come as no shock to you that I am a sappy mess over this whole business of being 4. Maybe you are 16 while reading this and laughing at the fact that I have said something to that effect on every single one of your birthdays. Maybe you are 35 and shaking your head in disbelief that you were once so small and your mama was so overwhelmed by love for you. Let me assure you that no matter how old you are at this moment, I am still amazed by the fact that God gave you to me. I am still certain that you hung the moon and stars by yourself. I am convinced that you are the most handsome, brilliant, wonderful man that ever existed. I still want to wrap you up in my arms and absorb every pain and heartache that you ever experience. It doesn't matter what year it is or where we are...you will always be my miracle.

As for right now, you are the cutest little boy of all time. :-) You are such an interesting cross between a baby and a big kid. You frequently say things like, "Your baby needs you to hold him" and then "I am a big boy, I can do it myself!" in the next breath. You are so funny! You love to tell jokes that make absolutely no sense and you make up words all the time. You still have deep dimples that melt everyone that meets you, but you have grown taller and very lanky. You are so skinny that I have trouble buying pants for you...if they fit in the waist, they are way too short! You were such a rolly polly baby that I never expected you to turn into such a lean boy, but lean you are! I think you get it from my grandfather, Mimi's daddy. Your face is so expressive and when you talk, you always shoot your eyebrows to the top of your head and cock your head to the side to make sure I know you are serious. You wave your hands around when you speak and you talk far FAR beyond your years. We forget how advanced you are in your speech and I love it when your therapists report to me about how you surprised them in one way or another. Sheri in particular...she always comes out of the room with you, her eyes wide in amazement, telling me something you said that was brilliant. Yesterday, we took you to lunch at Tang's, which is one of our favorite Asian places. As we were eating, Daddy asked you if you wanted some rice, to which you replied "No thanks, Dad...I'm not really much of a rice guy". I laughed so hard that I almost choked.

You are so brilliant. I know that I say it all the time, but I am amazed by it sometimes. You accept NOTHING as fact without asking a million questions about it. You need to know the whole story...why things are the way they are. You asked me completely out of the blue the other day why some animals are born without eyes. I don't know where you even got the idea to ask that, but before I could answer, you said "I think that some animals must be born with birth defects, like Duke's ear drum. It just happens sometimes". (And yes, my dad was born without an ear drum. Colin knows that because he is Colin.) As I am typing this, literally right this second, you walked in from the living room and asked me where people washed their hands before sinks were invented. I told you that people used rivers and streams to wash up before indoor plumbing. You looked at me for a moment and then said, "How about before rivers were invented?" and I told you that God made rivers when he made the earth, so they were always around. He finally nodded his agreement and went back to watch Backyardigans. Right now, that happened. While I am writing about how smart you are. You are on a kick about when things were invented and what people did before. I love that. I am actually a little nervous that I will somehow fail you because I am not smart enough. I wonder how I will keep up with you and if I can avoid you finding out that I am just an average girl who cared far more about dance class than algebra. I already google at least one thing a day because I don't even begin to know the answer. That can only go downhill from here!

We still follow the exact same bedtime routine with me laying beside you while you fall asleep. We are thinking about getting you twin bunk beds this year in order to give you more space in your room. I am wondering if that switch is how you will make the transition to falling asleep alone. We shall see. You take off your own clothes, but still need help getting them on. You love to play all kinds of things and you are amazing at pretend play. You love vehicles of any kind, but almost all of your play involves helping someone. When you ask to play race cars, you always stage a huge wreck that requires a fire truck and ambulance to save the cars. You even make up a hospital and assign cars to be the doctor and nurse. You convinced me to buy a dollhouse a couple of months ago and you very carefully picked out every bit of furniture for it, which is so you. You like to arrange the furniture and pretend that it is where your firemen go after work. That is so very you...you like to play "real life" things and reenact daily life. You love to play chef and store and lifeguard. You like army men, rescue teams, firemen and space. You have a doll named Lucy, who you treat like a daughter...you feed her, put her to bed and frequently make her your "kiddo" while we play. Like you make me hold her when I go through the "drive through" so that I can order her a kids meal. It makes me laugh every time. You are a caregiver at heart and your play always reflects that.

You love school, you love your teachers and you love your friends. You ask about people all the time and wonder how they are doing. Today, you said, "We haven't seen Scarlett in a while...we should play with her!", totally out of the blue. You will see a toy at the store and say, "Mom! I have a good idea! Let's get that for Ruthie!" If we pass by someone holding a baby, you will say without fail, "Mama, look at that cute baby! Did you see him? Wasn't he so cute?!" You are a good sweet boy and I am literally bursting at the seams with pride that I am your mama. I honestly feel like you are an extra special creation of God and that for some reason, He decided that I got to have you. You will always be the greatest thing that I have ever done. ALWAYS. I love you, peanut.

Here you are at your school birthday celebration...Miss Gina made your crown for you!

Holding Miss Evi...who has clearly become your cat. :-)

I mean, she let's you do things like this. That is real love.

Happy 4th Birthday to you, Colin!

The Birthday Boys!

2011-07-19T17:31:00.002-05:00

Have you ever seen a cuter birthday invitation?! My wonderful friend Kimberly made this for the boys and now I am officially excited for the beach! We are going to have so much fun! I am so thankful for my creative and talented friends!

Family Birthday Extravaganza!

2011-07-19T11:36:00.005-05:00

Colin's birthday weekend was absolutely wonderful! We had the best time celebrating with our family! The party was Sunday afternoon and everything went perfectly. My parents, Jer's parents, my sisters, Uncle Cory, Jackson and Pryce were all here. I made spicy pasta salad with smoked Gouda, watermelon salad, white queso and we grilled burgers, hot dogs and chicken. Colin's cake turned out adorable and he LOVED IT, which is pretty impressive considering it only cost me $20. I am known for blowing my budget on over the top cakes, so I was pretty proud of myself over this one. His stack of presents was enormous and he has more to come tomorrow from us. We might be spoiling him a bit for this 4th birthday. :-)

The cake! It was exactly what Colin wanted!

Lots of birthday presents!

Eating lunch with YaYa (otherwise known as my sister, Alieson)

How precious is this boy?!

Jackson and Colin were so cute together...they really have turned into best friends. They always have the best time and it gives me so much peace to know that no matter what happens, Colin will have his cousins. I know that Jackson will be just like a big brother to him for the rest of his life!

My sisters and the most beautiful Miss Pryce Lucille. She is literally too much to handle. She is all squishy goodness and I want to eat her up every time I lay eyes on her.

Cake time!

All the girls...Meredith, me, my mama and Alieson. Mert, do I get points for writing "Meredith"? It felt strange. ;-)

After lunch, we headed over to the Trophy Club pool for a little swimming fun. The boys were so cute!

Later that night, Colin opened his puppet theater and puppets courtesy of Mimi and Duke. He has been asking for this for ages and he was over the moon about it. He loves putting on shows!

Have you ever seen a happier face?! I love that he wanted puppets...that is just so Colin. :-)

I also must note that Colin got under the table again this year when we sang Happy Birthday to him. Some things never change. :-) Right now, he is at school. This is his last week of summer program, so I used to opportunity today to go pick up his big present for tomorrow...a BIKE! I got all the accessories to go with it and I can't wait to see his face!

Potatoes = Joy

2011-07-15T18:11:00.004-05:00

I rocked dinner tonight. Engagement chicken and the best scalloped potatoes ever. Oh my lord have mercy, they were good. Colin Shaffer, current president of "The Coalition to Avoid All Food that Our Mothers Slave Over", ate every bite off his plate. It was that good. I also rocked more calories than I should eat in a whole day, but let's focus on the positive. I have three words for you: jarlsberg, asiago and mozzarella. Oh, yes.

Now that I have gloated about the glory of creamy goodness, let's talk Colin. We are staring down a big weekend for this kiddo! He is going to his first ever "school friend" birthday party tomorrow morning, my parents are coming in town, then his family birthday celebration is on Sunday, complete with everyone from Tyler! Colin is beside himself over it. He is officially four years old next Wednesday. Prepare yourself for the gigantic "how is my baby four years old" post coming soon. His best buddies Ryan, Hayden and Jack all have their birthday within a couple of weeks of Colin's, so we decided to throw them all a huge pirate themed bash on the beach in Galveston. We are taking a family trip there in early August with nine other families....all of our best friends! Colin has been talking about his pirate party since March, so the countdown is totally on. We decided to throw a small family party for him at home on Sunday to celebrate here and he is so excited! We ordered a space cake per his specific instructions (Mom, we have to save all the pirate stuff for the beach!) and a ton of balloons from Party City. Today we got burgers, hot dogs and chicken for the grill and the whole thing is shaping up to be a blast. After we eat and open presents, we are going to take Colin and his cousins to one of the best pools ever. It should be a great day!

For posterity's sake, it should also be noted that Colin went off on a new tangent today that came out of nowhere. He began asking me what people did before clothes were invented. He asked me who discovered the material to make clothes. He asked me what people wore before material was invented. He asked me what children did before television was invented. He spent a long time today playing completely naked in order to "pretend that I am a kid before clothes were invented". He always blows me away. I have absolutely no idea where this line of questioning came from...I can't recall a book or recent show that would have initiated it. I do know that he is a brilliant boy and I am proud to call him mine!

A Diagnosis Recap...

2011-07-11T16:14:00.006-05:00

Colin is going to be four years old in a little over a week. I don't know how this is possible, yet here we are. My sweet boy has been through a whole lot this year and he is doing absolutely amazing. I have written several times during the years about Colin and his "quirks", but I never had any answers. I read everything I could get my hands on and last summer at this exact time, I started trying to get real help. I have always known that Colin was different than kids his age and it was time that I found someone to help me. We started with the pedi, and from there were referred to an occupational therapy group and a neuropsychologist. The wait times were insane. We didn't get into the OT group until January (7 month wait) and the neuro took until April! I took solace in the fact that we were clearly going to the best places if they were so booked up and just waited. We learned so much about Colin and the main thing that I took from everything is that we have stepped in to help him so much earlier than most kids and that is going to help him beyond measure.

First of all, he is brilliant. He was given the Wechsler test for IQ and his score was 127. The highest score possible is 130. He is considered "exceptionally able/gifted" and tested in the "superior" range in the vast majority of the testing. The doctor told us that the number would be even higher were it not for his ADHD issues. I have known all along that he was taking in too much information for his age and being totally overwhelmed with all the input he is receiving. When he was two, he was pointing out light fixtures in restaurants that resembled the ones in our home and noticing that our brand of dishwasher is the same one in a friends house. Around his second birthday, he was talking in full complex sentences with all the words in the right place and the right tense. He spoke like an adult. His teachers last year were very involved with the testing and they wrote letters about Colin to the doctor. They spoke about how he notices everything and has trouble getting past something, like a shoelace being untied or a hair ribbon out of place. He has an almost OCD way of needing things fixed that are not "right". He is also extremely nervous when placed in any new situation, whether it be a new child, teacher or even a change in schedule or routine. Transitions are very hard on Colin. Which brings me to the next diagnosis, PDD.

We were explained that Pervasive Developmental Disorder is not Aspergers, but an a-typical presentation that looks a lot like it sometimes. He cannot get the label of Aspergers because he does not have the eye contact/social component that is required for the dx. (Which is wonderful news!) We were told that kids with PDD usually prefer babies and adults and battle the sensory issues much more than Aspergers kids. That describes Colin perfectly. He is a brilliant, complex little man. He has trouble with some social cues and is constantly worried about how other people are feeling and if they are okay. Like if he makes eye contact with a baby and that baby doesn't smile, he will start crying and ask why the baby doesn't like him. He functions on a level that kids his age don't and that can lead to major social problems. He is currently seeing a wonderful therapist who works with him weekly on things like social skills. He was also diagnosed with ADHD and general anxiety disorder. The anxiety disorder apparently goes hand in hand with his giftedness. He has always taken in more information than he can process and it led to panic attacks. He worries about everything, from the health of his family to what will happen if we have a fire. We found out that he had a cavity this week, and the discussion that I had with him about it upset the heck out of him (despite trying hard to make it a positive and happy discussion). This morning we had breakfast out and on the way home, he burst into tears, worried about getting a cavity on the way home before we could brush our teeth. He takes everything so seriously. There is a new little boy in class that is disruptive and he upset Colin so much that he started chewing his shirt. He chewed it so much that it looked as though he had taken a shower when I picked him up. He just gets nervous and I hate that for him. He used to be scared to leave the house, which was a big reason why I started seeking help in the first place. Getting him into the car, even if he knew we were going somewhere fun, was a huge battle. Colin likes routine, he likes to know exactly what is going to happen and he likes order. He doesn't like noise that he can't control. And he loves to take care of things. :-) The ADHD problem is going to follow him forever, more than likely, although once we get the anxiety under control, that will help. He just constantly takes in too much and his mind jumps from one thing to another like lightening. If we can help him focus, there is no limit to what he can accomplish.

Colin is a new man these days. He has a whole team helping him now...his psychotherapist Sheri, his occupational therapist Cheryl and his neuropsychologist, Dr. Bengston. He goes to both therapies once a week and has come so far! Getting dressed and leaving the house are no longer the big deal they used to be. He gets upset very easily if he can't make a toy work or if something goes wrong in any way with what he is doing, but he recently learned techniques to help him calm down. Today, he built a castle that toppled over and he screamed and started to throw things. All I said was "Colin?" and he ran into his room and began taking deep breaths and blowing them out very slowly. Cheryl taught him to clasp his hands together very hard (pressure is good) and breath out very slowly when he gets overwhelmed. When I rounded the corner to his room, he was doing just that! It blew my mind that he finally made the connection and is starting to try to help himself. Sheri is teaching him how to play with other kids that are not gifted. :-) He is learning that he can't tell other kids how to do everything or what the answer is. He is learning that kids his age might not want to play the same way he does, but that is okay. He may know all about forces like gravity and friction, but he needed help learning to peddle a trike. He is just Colin.

There is so much more to say and this could go on forever. I have hesitated to write about it because it overwhelms me to attempt to cover all that we have been through. But I want to start doing it in little bits and pieces so that we can look back and see how far we have come and how amazing Colin has been since birth. I don't know if anyone watches "The Big Bang Theory" besides my family, but we often joke that we hope Colin is a "Leonard" instead of a "Sheldon". Although, if he is a Sheldon, that is just fine with me. :-)

8 YEARS!

2011-07-10T11:11:00.004-05:00

My husband married me 8 years ago tomorrow. That means that we have been together for ten years! I hardly remember a time without him. He seemed to be my missing link from the first moment I laid eyes on him. I was chartering private jets and Jer was a new pilot with the company my best friend worked for. I remember him walking into the East Coast Jets office door and April introducing me to him. He was wearing a brown leather bomber jacket and sunglasses. He got his trip sheet from April and walked out the door and I said, "THAT BOY IS HOT!". My steadfast rule during my years in aviation was never date a pilot...but for this one, I was willing to break my own rules. I was in love with him from the beginning. We didn't know how easy we had it then or how outrageously lucky we were to be in our situation. We were young and successful with lots of wonderful friends. We worked in private aviation and spent the majority of our lives flying in jets to all kinds of places and experiencing life. We would fly to Atlantic City at the drop of a hat to gamble all night...shuttle down to Fort Lauderdale to spend weekends at our company condo...spend the night in NYC drinking cocktails in hotel bars. We were everywhere. I lived just outside of NYC and Jer lived in PA. He would drive out to Madison, NJ almost every time he got home and sometimes would have to turn around and go right back for another trip. We were inseparable from the very start. I love that we spent those years having fun and being young and carefree. After we married, we spent about 5 more months in the northeast and then I got the charter sales manager position in Dallas. It was a dream come true for me to get back to Texas. This is my home and this is where my family is. I loved living up north, but I was honestly pretty homesick. Jeremy was supportive immediately and had no problem with moving his whole life to a brand new state for his new wife. I remember driving across the country with our poor kitty Gretchen huddled in her litter box in the back seat. I remember when we crossed the state line into Texas and I almost wept with joy. I remember seeing our awesome apartment for the first time when we pulled into downtown Dallas. I remember standing on the roof with him and realizing that the skyline of Dallas was all around us. I remember when we picked out Enzo and then proceeded to pamper him like a child for a few years. :-) I can't believe it has been so long and how far we have come. I love knowing that I am going to spend my whole life with Jeremy Shaffer!

Here are a few oldies from our early days...

This is me at our engagement party in Fort Lauderdale. We had a big celebration with lots of our friends. I had to include this shot mainly because I can't believe that my stomach used to look like that. This is how I know it really has been 8 years since this picture. ;-)
Dinner on the beach in Fort Lauderdale on the same engagement weekend.

Look how young we look! This is when we told Jer's mom and step-dad that we got engaged. It should also be noted that I went crazy around this time as asked a hairdresser in NYC to give me the Faith Hill look from her "This Kiss" video. Which was totally brilliant, what with me being 5'10, blonde and skinny...wait. WHY did that person listen to me?! I hated my short hair and was secretly so upset with myself that I cut it right before we got engaged. I almost wanted to wait for the wedding so that my hair could grow back out. Almost. ;-)

Flying with Captain Shaffer in the spring of 2003. And by flying, I mean making the co-pilot Nick move for 10 seconds, taking this picture, and then hightailing it out of there. I prefer the seats in the cabin. ;-)

Our wedding! I love this picture...it was so Viva Las Vegas. :-)

In the limo on the way to dinner! MARRIED! I can't believe this was 8 years ago.

Sitting poolside during our honeymoon in Vegas.

New York in Vegas! Lord, it was hot.

Pool party right after we got home as a married couple...

I may have to post more pictures soon...I am waiting on Jer to get home from his weekend away with friends and he knows where the rest of the old photos are. I am loving going down memory lane! I love you, huBsand! :-)

Happy 4th of July!

2011-07-09T21:40:00.006-05:00

Okay. I am not changing the name. I am apparently completely unable to do anything as drastic as change the name of my blog. As much as the name seems to mock my inability to sit down and write a novel, I have become attached to it and nothing else sounds right. So I will apparently live in infamy as "The Storytelling Mommy"...you know, the one that dreams about writing something worthwhile and instead blogs. ;-)

A lot has been going on around here, as usual! The 4th of July weekend was absolutely insane. My nephew Jackson was celebrating his 6th (what??) birthday that Saturday, so Colin and I spent the weekend in Tyler. We were there Friday through Sunday and got home just in time to go to sleep and then wake up for a big 4th filled with awesome stuff! We met Jer's parents bright and early for a 4th of July parade in their neighborhood and it was so much fun. We went back to their house and Colin played with the slip-n-slide while I marveled that I once threw myself down on one of those without breaking all my bones. A long time ago. After a great lunch, we headed home so that I could make up a couple of dishes for an impromptu evening with friends. Kim's parents, Barb and Dave, had some friends over and we stopped by. I really have come to think of that whole family as part of mine! :-) Colin had a blast and I actually managed to take ZERO pictures, either at Jackson's party or the 4th of July with Kim. I guess I needed a camera break. Anyway, we had such a great weekend!

As we drove home that night, we decided on a whim to pull over and buy some sparklers for Colin. It was a rural road and we pulled in to the first place we saw. The sun was going down on the day and Colin was already in his pajamas in the back of the car. He asked for "fireworks", and so he shall have! ;-) It was the cutest little place with families and kids buying stuff and even a litter of puppies being offered for free just running around the place. Colin was very serious about what color sparklers he wanted. GREEN AND GOLD. It turned into one of those little moments I will treasure one day when Colin is a man...I will always remember him in his turtle pajamas, half asleep already, but jumping up and down for sparklers. I will always remember that he was so worried about those puppies running away and how he wanted to make sure the other kids were holding them out of the way before we started the car. I will always remember how excited he was just to be with his family and doing something special. What a perfect day!

Here are Daddy and Colin getting ready for the show. Colin is going to ride in the golf cart with Jer's parents in the parade!

Colin's best case scenario: Cops, firetrucks, and military machines. He was beside himself over it!
This is SO cute of them getting ready to head out on the parade route! Colin was seriously into it!

Just a cute chat with Mom Mom. At our afternoon party, I got a couple of cute shots of the boys eating their spread of cookies, yogurt and cotton candy.

And last, but not least...my little man and his wonderful sparklers! Happy 4th of July!!

A New Name

2011-06-26T16:33:00.002-05:00

I am getting ready to change the name of this blog! "Thoughts From A Storytelling Mommy" was my brilliant decision when I was the sleep deprived mother of a newborn with fantastical dreams of succeeding at becoming a novelist. I still have dreams of becoming a novelist, but it hasn't exactly happened yet. ;-) Anyway, I have not liked my title in a long time and I have finally decided to make a change. I don't want to do this a million times, so I need to pick a name and stick with it. Any opinions? I have been thinking about:

A Shaffer Story

Three Shaffers Strong

Three Shaffers

Or, maybe none of those. I need to be more creative. I need something catchy and cute. I am close to having someone fix up the blog for me and I need to obviously pick a new title first. Why is this so hard?! Somebody be super creative and suggest a new title. Or tell me to stick with the old one and be quiet. ;-)

Around Here

2011-06-24T13:48:00.006-05:00

There are very important things going on around here, none of which are actually important. First of all, Sephora opened today. Not the silly little JC Penney's Sephora, but the real deal! A huge store opened in Southlake Town Center and it is going to take all the will power that I posess not to go there every single day. It is amazingly close to Anthropologie and Black House White Market, which makes this my trifecta of shopping. Not to mention Janie and Jack...we wouldn't want to leave Colin out of the shopping fun! I love Southlake Town Center and adding Sephora to the list of greatness has taken my life to new highs. ;-)

They finally broke ground yesterday on a grocery store within walking distance to my house. That's right, folks. Walking distance. It is going to be a Kroger Signature and it is certain that I am going to live there. I can't even wrap my mind around how great this is going to be. I feel like I spend my whole life driving back and forth to the grocery store, so this is big news. I am a little too excited about it, honestly. You know you are old when the thought of a nearby grocery store is too much for you to handle. Our newspaper said that the store would be complete 10 months after breaking ground, so let the countdown begin! The "coming soon" sign has been up for months, so seeing the bulldozers out there was pretty exciting. Our pedi and family doctors are both in the office park across the street from the new store, so I will soon be filling my prescriptions at the Kroger pharmacy. This means that when Colin is sick, I can take him to the doctor and get his meds less than a mile from my front door. I told you that I was abnormally excited about this.

We have been at the pool every single day for weeks now. Our HOA dues may be a little steep, but it is so worth it to have access to all of our pools. There is one a few doors down from us on our block, so Colin and I throw our swimsuits on and walk over there constantly. He is also loving the other pools this year, including the slide pool and the splash park pool. He likes the splash park because he can go back and forth between that and the big pool. He likes the slide pool because his ~~girlfriend~~ lifeguard Emily is always there.

This is Colin swimming with Emily during swim lessons. She is his first crush. I know that he doesn't know what it means yet, but I can tell by his behavior and the look in his eyes that he loves her. Swim lessons are over now, but she lifeguards at our pool and Colin loves it. We had to explain repeatedly that she can't talk to him while she is on the stand. He waits for her to take a break and then runs over to talk to her. What am I going to do when a million girls are swarming all over my boy?! I don't even like that he loves Emily. She is too skinny and wears 80's sunglasses like she discovered them. ;-)

However, you can't blame the girls. Who wouldn't be all about this guy?!

One Season Down...

2011-06-19T20:07:00.008-05:00

Ah, Blastball season. I can't believe that it is already over...I remember starting practice in March and thinking that June sounded so far away. There are really no words to express how proud I am of Colin and his whole first team experience. In April, Colin was officially diagnosed with an anxiety disorder (which I will finally post about soon), so being on this team was a huge deal for him. Things started out amazingly well...in fact, it blew my mind! I realized quickly that I had mentally prepared myself for the worst and never actually entertained the option that he would like playing! He listened carefully to instructions, participated in every aspect of the game and really had fun doing it. I was also shocked to find out that he is an excellent hitter! He really excelled at that part! We want Colin to experience everything and decide on his own what he likes to do...I would never force him to participate in something, but I also don't want to shelter him too much. There are many times that my assumptions on what he will tolerate are wrong and I never want to limit him. We try to work through his anxiety and face it head on. Blastball has been an excellent example of how strong Colin truly is. A few weeks in, he started having serious panic attacks before practice and wouldn't get out of the car. It came close to derailing the whole thing, but the panic had something to do with the practice field (who knows what exactly) and not the game itself. Our awesome friends unanimously decided that Colin didn't need to attend practice to play the game, so we worked through that part and kept going. He loved the games from day one and was always racing out the door ahead of me to get there. There were a couple of games that had rough patches where he got nervous about something and couldn't play, but so did all the other boys! There were also several moments when he got truly upset about something and still managed to recover himself and go back out there. Colin's whole world can be so overwhelming and the fact that he worked through his fears in order to be on this team is just amazing. He really wanted to play...he wanted to wear his uniform and be with his friends. He wanted to learn and succeed and managed to do just that. Did I end up sitting in the dugout on more than one occasion...yep. Was it worth it? YES!

We had an end of season party on that last Saturday after the game and we had a blast. The party was at Barb and Dave's house and after lots of swimming we had a big feast of hot dogs and hamburgers with all the fixings. Coach Nate handed out the trophies and Colin was BESIDE HIMSELF. It was so beautiful to see the joy and pride etched across his face when Nathan handed him that trophy. I could tell that he got it - he totally understood that he worked hard to hang in there for that prize. He fell asleep with it in the car on the way home that night and it is proudly sitting on his dresser now beside his team picture. What a wonderful experience for all of us!!! I think we are going to try soccer in the fall! :-)

Colin and Hayden standing in line for trophies together...I love how close Colin stood to him! Hayden is one of his favorite people in the world.

One of my favorite pictures in the world...Nate handing Colin his trophy. Nate congratulated him on being one of his best hitters and you can see how proud Colin is. I also love that we have people in our lives that adore Colin so much. You can really tell how much he loves his coach!

Atta boy!

Showing off his first trophy!!

The whole adorable team! From left, Hayden, Jack, Hayden P., Colin, Anders, Greyson, Keegan and Gavin. There will never be anything better than having a team comprised entirely of your best friends. :-)

Colin and Mommy Date!

2011-06-17T08:11:00.006-05:00

Look at me! Two posts in 24 hours! I am very proud of myself and happy to be back into blog mode! Now it's time to play catch up...June has been so busy and wonderful around here! Let's start with my recent date with the best boy in the whole world! We just had Legoland open at the Grapevine Mills Mall a few weeks ago and Colin has been begging to go. The day before the school district let out for summer, it hit me that if I wanted to take Colin without a huge crowd, I had to do it immediately! I informed Colin that we were having a special day together and he was over the moon. We arrived at Legoland at about 11am and it was everything Colin wanted it to be! The crowd was minimal (for such a popular place) and the first thing we came upon was a ride that took us through a castle. As we rode, we helped fight the bad guys with laser guns to save the princess. Colin LOVED it!! We also got to see a 4D movie, which was absolutely amazing. They showed Bob the Builder and we got to wear the special glasses and the whole nine yards. They had real water, wind and even snow in the theatre! Colin was blown away and kept reaching his arms out to touch everything. We had an absolute blast! Afterwards, we picked out a Lego set in the gift shop and then went on to the second half of our date, lunch at Rainforest Cafe! It was Colin's first visit there, which is crazy. He was beside himself over the animals and we got to sit right beside the elephants. They even had a balloon artist walking around creating balloon animals. It was the most amazing afternoon and Colin was radiating joy. We even popped our heads into Payless on the way out of the mall and he helped me pick out sandals. :-) It was just one of those days when I realize how lucky I am. Colin is my sidekick and as he gets older, our adventures together are becoming so much fun. Surprising him with treats like this is one of the highlights of my life! Seeing his face when he experiences something new and amazing...I don't think I will ever get enough of that!

Lego's are EVERYWHERE! :-)

VERY impressed with the Lego dog!

Ready for our 4D movie! How excited is this boy?!

The Lego display of Dallas...they had replicas of Forth Worth, too! Super cool!

LOVING our date!

Getting ready for lunch at Rainforest Cafe!

Posing by the fountains at Rainforest Cafe

Colin and the elephants!

Posing with his balloon caterpillar. What a PERFECT DAY!!

Getting Back on Track!

2011-06-16T15:19:00.006-05:00

Okay, so a lot has been going on in my life. I have several blog posts going in my "drafts" section and with every passing day, I am getting more and more behind! I have had so much going on that I got a little overwhelmed with trying to write here. Which is not cool. I have next to nothing written since the start of the year and we are already into summer. I hate that! This blog has definitely taken a backseat and I don't like it at all.

The elephant in the room right now is the fact that we have been trying to conceive for a very long time and despite plenty of help from my doctor, things are not going great. I went into a bit of a funk over the whole thing and couldn't figure out how to keep going on the blog. I want this blog to be fun memories for Colin AND I am not one to share such personal stuff over the world wide web. However, I couldn't bring myself to write my usual fluff since I have had so much on my mind. I have started so many posts detailing the pain of not being able to conceive, but then I just delete them. I don't like to be sad and I don't like to write about it, either! I am a glass half full kind of girl! Therefore, I have decided to totally drop it and pull myself together. There is a TON of wonderful stuff going on right now and we are in a great place with our little family. I refuse to neglect this blog any longer because of my pity party! SOOO, in honor of the lighter things in life, I give you a nice fluffy Chalna style post! Don't we all feel better now?! ;-)

*Colin is finishing up his second week of swim lessons and he LOVES IT. This has been a momentous occasion for us...as of yesterday, Colin swims underwater. As in, totally under. With goggles. On his head. One of his biggest sensory issues has been getting his face wet and having anything touch his face...we still battle with washing his hair! After several days of convincing, he gave it a try during class yesterday and I almost fell out of my plastic pool chair. He came up grinning, obviously proud of himself, and shot me a thumbs up from his spot in class. After lessons, we kept swimming together and he was like a new child! He swam until almost 2:30, going underwater the whole time, and then passed out once we got home. He napped for 30 minutes, and then we went BACK to the pool when Dad got home to show off our new skills. He then slept until 8:15 this morning, which in Colin's world is close to being in a coma. I love swimming! ;-)

*Colin started his 5 week summer program at school this week. He goes on Tuesdays and Thursdays and is actually thrilled to be back! On Tuesday, he literally ran right into Miss Gina's arms and forgot to tell me goodbye. How quickly we fall of the list. HA! There are different kids in his class and Miss Heather is also his teacher, which is new. He still loves it and told me that he made several new friends. I am so proud of how far he has come!! Ten months ago, he wouldn't even get in the car to go to school and now he is happy and going with the flow. What a difference a year makes...and a great occupational therapist, counselor and psychologist-as well as great teachers. :-) We have this wonderful team around Colin now and he is thriving beyond what I thought possible. He is so brilliant and I am starting to believe that he will be a rocket scientist. I am only slightly kidding.

*I need to be totally honest. The other reason that I don't blog much anymore is because I can't stop watching "Glee". I waited until a few weeks ago to start the show and I am completely and totally out of control. It is the. best. show. ever. I am coming very close to being caught up and I am starting to slow down because I don't want it to be over! How will I possibly wait until FALL to start the new episodes?? As soon as Colin goes to sleep, I park myself in front of the TV with a diet DP and bowl of popcorn and wallow in the joy that is people bursting into song randomly during the day. I crazy love this show.

*I bought a crazy rock star awesome curling iron for no good reason. You have to wear a heat proof glove to use it. I love it. I had to actually practice with it. An expensive and frivolous beauty device brings me such happiness.

*Colin is going to be 4 years old in one month. WHAT???????

*I just gave myself a mini-stroke when I wrote the last statement.

Okay, so I promise to write more tomorrow and the next day and the next. I WILL get this blog up to date! However, I must go watch Glee. Mr. Schuester needs me.

THE Last Day!

2011-05-19T14:48:00.003-05:00

The last day of school was wonderful and emotional and everything that I knew it would be. We got our donuts as usual and then headed over to class. The kiddos had a movie party and watched "Finding Nemo" with popcorn for everyone! They got to skip naps for this, so it was a very special day. :-) They sent us home with treat bags and all kinds of goodies and frankly, I am still in shock that it is seriously all over. How did this year go by so quickly?!? Colin said his goodbyes and then as we were walking down the hall, he let go of my hand and ran back to his room. He jumped into Miss Gina's arms to give her another hug and I thought I was going to cry my eyes out right there on the spot. I stood in that same spot in the hallway crying on the first day, so worried and upset over my crying baby who didn't want me to leave. I can't believe how far we have come!! I am just overwhelmed with love for those teachers and everything they have done for my little guy. What a perfect last moment!

Colin and Miss Keli

Miss Keli, Colin and Miss Gina!
We are going to miss them SO MUCH!!

School's Out for Summer!

2011-05-17T16:13:00.011-05:00

I am working on THREE posts at the moment...they are all works in progress. There is so much to talk about! I have put the other posts to the side for the moment in order to post this VERY IMPORTANT message: Colin made it through his ENTIRE first year of preschool!! He did it!! We did it! We are all still alive!! :-)

This is Colin's last week of school and I just picked up him. He had a little package to give me that included a t-shirt that he made with his hand prints on it and a giant book of all the letters and numbers and drawings that he has worked on all year. On top of that, he got his "Me Book", which is basically a scrapbook filled with pictures and memories for each child that the teachers put together. Colin's is SO CUTE and the whole thing just overwhelmed me. I cannot believe that his first year is over. He has come so far and so much has changed. I knew that going to preschool would be helpful for Colin but I had no idea the leaps and bounds he would progress. He has turned into such a little boy this year and hardly resembles the little guy that I sent off on the first day. He had to be physically removed from me for the first month or so and now he happily runs into school everyday. He loves his teachers so much and they were our gift from God this year, for sure. They have had infinite patience and love for my little man. He is so much more confident now and absolutely loves anything to do with learning. He has made a classroom full of friends and talks about all of them constantly...telling me about what funny things they said to each other and who got in trouble. ;-) When school first started, he refused to tell me anything about his day, but now he talks constantly about it. He has done such a wonderful job this year and I could not be prouder of him!!

This is one of the pages in his book...the whole thing is FULL of pictures from the whole year. I just LOVE IT! Colin is with his best friend Keaton in every picture on this page and the one on the right is my favorite! That is Colin with his arm around Keaton, Presley and McKenna. Those are the 3 kids that he talks the most about and there they are together on the playground. I love that he honestly made a group of real friends! I am sad that they have to say goodbye on Thursday...I think I have 15 more of these "last days of school"...lord help me!

The little bundle we picked up at school: The "Me Book", the book of Colin's school work and his new t-shirt.
We are looking forward to summer now and all the pools and fun in our future! Can you believe that ~~I made it~~ Colin made it through this whole year?! ;-) Here are a few memories that I want to record for my little man:

*You attend school on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9-2. Your teachers are Miss Gina and Miss Keli. You have several teachers around the building who know you and call you by name when we pass them in the halls. You seem to have made friends with all of them, despite not being in their classes! Everyone loves you!

*Your best friends are Keaton, McKenna, Presley, Jackson and Caleb. You talk about them all the time.

*Your favorite activities have always been chapel, story time and playing outside. You have chapel every Tuesday and your favorite thing in the world is when all the students chant "AMEN" at the end. You seriously talk about this all the time. :-)

*Your teachers fill out a form that we get at the end of each day and you have NEVER gotten a bad report. Or even a sad or just so-so report. You have gotten a glowing report each and every day. This amazed me so much that I asked about it mid-year, wondering if they were sugar coating things for me. They laughed and assured me that they were totally accurate...you are just a very good and caring boy! I am so proud of this, Colin!

*You love "show and tell" on Thursdays and are always very serious about picking out something good to take for the theme of the week.

*We stop for donuts before school every morning. The donut shop is right around the corner from our house and down the street from school. We leave the house at 8:30am so that we have time to eat together first. The lady who owns the shop knows you very well now and you make silly faces together all the time. You always pick out a juice box when we first walk in the door and then run straight up to the glass to pick your donut. You always get one chocolate covered and one vanilla sprinkled, although you make a big show of "picking". :-) You only eat the toppings and literally leave the rest of the donut. In the last few months, you have added kolaches to the mix, but you make me throw out the wrapping and only eat the sausage. The high school is down the street and you love to watch all the teenagers come in for donuts while we eat. Our school mornings are such a wonderful memory for me!

A Royal Birthday

2011-04-29T15:34:00.004-05:00

I am 34 years old today. This seems exceedingly old. 35 is completely unacceptable, so I may or may not be posting next year. ;-)

Today has been an AMAZING birthday - so good, in fact, that I doubt it can easily be topped. Today, Prince William and Catherine Middleton decided to get married in honor of my birthday. It was extremely nice of them to consider me on their special day. :-) This wedding was probably a bit too important to me, but nonetheless, it has ranked very high on my list of favorite moments. The reason goes back a long time...30 years, as a matter of fact. One of my first memories is of watching Princess Diana marry Prince Charles. I don't remember how my mama managed to wake me up at 4am, but knowing me, I was probably still awake from the night before. My daddy had a big brown recliner and I can recall perfectly sitting in my mother's lap in that chair when Diana got out of the carriage. I can see the big television in front of us - the kind that looked like a piece of furniture with the wood surround. It was a giant moment for my little 4 year old self. I remember thinking that it was the most unbelievable thing that I had ever seen...a real life princess getting married to her real life prince in all the pomp and circumstance that a little girl could fathom. It made such a huge impact on me and it probably had a lot to do with sharing the moment with my mama in the wee hours of the morning. My sisters would have been only about 5 months old at the time, which would explain why my mom was awake! It was our moment for just the two of us and for some reason, seeing Princess Diana step out of the carriage in a sea of bows stayed with me my whole life. My love of all things British started then and to this day, most of the novels I read take place in the UK. I can get lost in a history book about London. SO, when I found out that Diana's son would get married on my birthday this year, I thought it was clearly meant to be. I have been so excited this week that I could barely contain myself!

I set the DVR to record about 900 hours of programming and then set my alarm this morning for 5:00am. My theory was that I wanted to watch the whole wedding BEFORE watching all the recaps that would inevitably be all over the news all day today. I wanted to really watch it. Once Colin wakes up, he keeps my attention for literally the whole day. I would never be able to watch anything important on television while taking care of him at the same time. Therefore, my decision was easy...I had to get up early to watch the ceremony before the kiddo woke up. Alas, the difference of having a boy vs. a girl. I knew that Colin would not love to share a royal wedding memory with me the way that I did with my mom. ;-) The alarm went off at 5am and I went straight in to make a cup of coffee, grab a blueberry muffin and get in position. I started watching when it was still pitch dark outside, but it worked out perfectly. I got to see the most beautiful ceremony in its entirety and Colin woke up to join me right as the newlyweds were kissing on the balcony in real time. It was SO wonderful!!! Colin padded his way into my bedroom at about 7:30am this morning wearing his car pajamas and carrying his white bear. He looked at the television with his sleepy baby eyes and asked me what I was watching. I explained to him that a prince got married in England. He looked at the screen again and immediately asked me, as only Colin could, "Why are they wearing garbage can lids on their heads?". I laughed out loud and snatched him into bed with me. It was the most perfect start to a birthday in history...at least for me. I headed into the kitchen from there and made toast and bacon for breakfast and indulged in a 3rd cup of coffee. I called my mom and we talked about every last tidbit of the ceremony while I ate. Luckily, Jer went to work to later this afternoon, so he was able to watch Colin while I showered and dressed leisurely. Then I took the kiddo with me to Central Market, where we met a big group of friends for lunch on the patio. We even shared a couple of bottles of wines! Awesome! After lunch, we headed inside the market to pick up stuff for dinner tonight. I stocked up on ingredients for caprese salad (one of our family favs) and a big loaf of rustic bread. Tonight, I plan to lay around with my little family and feast on all things covered in EVOO and balsamic vinegar. I should also mention that grocery shopping with Colin is much more enjoyable after a glass of wine. HA!!

I know that I am a little too nostalgic at times and that the silliest things mean more to me than most people, but at 34 years old, I have come to accept this fact. I am a sappy old fool and proud of it! Wait...change that to "sappy super hot young fool". That sounds way better.

Let The Games Begin!

2011-04-06T15:03:00.011-05:00

I grew up with 2 sisters in a land full of glitter, tutus and pink tights. Sports for me consisted of tightly curled ponytails, red lipstick and dance recitals. I did absolutely nothing that was not set to music. Therefore, I assumed that Colin was going to be a girl. I was certain...and not because I didn't want a boy, but simply couldn't fathom a boy. I had the bedding picked out and the decor planned in my head when we went to the ultrasound appointment. The technician said, "It's a girl!". I knew it! She even typed "GIRL" across the screen. And then Colin moved. "Wait a second...that was the cord...oh, my! It's a BOY!". Sure enough, plain as day, my son was staring back at us through the monitor. Immediately, like in a movie, images whooshed in at me all at once...dirt, sweat, soccer balls, cleats, baseball gloves and the whole nine yards. I saw myself handing a plate of dinner to a boy with a grass stained jersey and a grin on his face. I knew at that moment that I was born to be the mother of this boy. Suddenly, I was over the moon with excitement over things that I had never even thought of before. I would sometimes lay in bed at night and wonder if I was being silly...if the make believe images in my head could really come true and be reality. Keep in mind that I am the same woman who grew up certain that my high school boyfriend would look exactly like Danny Zuko and that at some point I would utter the line, "Tell me about it, Stud". I am not exactly known for having reasonable expectations. Well, for once in my life, the story that I told in my head actually came true! Last weekend, we attended the opening ceremonies for baseball season, as well as Colin's first real game. It was completely unforgettable and one of the most wonderful experiences I have ever had!

Opening ceremonies turned out to be a BIG deal, which I should have known. Texans are notoriously serious about sports. :-) There was a big parade announcing all the teams and then all the kids gathered on the field for the National Anthem and the first pitch. There were bounce houses, a home run derby and lots of hot dogs. It was WONDERFUL! Colin and his friends all looked absolutely adorable, to the point that it was overwhelming me at times! Colin showed no nerves, followed his friends gleefully through the parade and was super excited to wear his uniform. His shirt hung literally to the middle of his calves, which made it even more precious. The weather was perfect and sharing this with our best friends made it even better. I am SO glad that we are all on this team together! The first game was Saturday morning and that was equally wonderful. Colin did such a great job and participated through the whole game! He really seemed to be having a great time, which was a dream come true. As I was driving over to the ballpark that morning, I was overcome with how much things are changing and how fast. It seems like 5 minutes ago that Colin was an infant and look at us now. He is sitting in the backseat of my car in full baseball uniform and eating a donut while asking me if I "remembered his cleats". I am driving around a sea of soccer and baseball moms, looking for a parking space and wishing I had thought to bring the folding chairs. How did this happen?! When did we get here?! I love everything about being the mother of a boy...especially THIS boy...I just wish it would slow down! There is almost not enough time to savor the cuteness of this stage! :-)

Here are some of the 9,000 pictures that I took over the two days. Colin is number 7!

Blastball Ready!

2011-03-23T11:51:00.004-05:00

Colin started Blastball practice last Thursday and even though I knew that it would be adorable, I had no idea how much I would enjoy watching the action unfold! I am so excited for the whole season! His team is the "Longhorns" and this will be the one and only time that anyone will see me cheer on a team in orange. Despite my deep-rooted Aggie alliance, I am still thrilled for the games to begin! ;-)

I was very nervous about signing Colin up for a team sport and I had really decided against trying it this year. It takes Colin a while to warm up to new people and places and I had a hard time imagining him joining a group of kids and listening to coaches all of whom he does not know in order to learn something that he has never tried in a place that he has never been. That is quite a lethal combo for Colin! I figured that we would try it next summer and give him another year to work on his anxiety. Then over dinner one night in February, my friend Tanya told us that she had signed up to coach a blastball team and she would put the team together herself. This meant that all 7 players on the team are Colin's best friends. AND the 3 coaches are all our adult friends who Colin adores. It was the perfect situation...Colin gets introduced to team sports with the people he loves. I am still beside myself with gratitude for Tanya! :-)

Even with the "ideal situation", I had no way of knowing if Colin would like blastball, so I was a bit nervous as we pulled up to our first practice. Colin absolutely blew me away!! We practice at an elementary school field that has a playground attached. When Coach Dave (who is Hayden's grandpa) called the boys to start practice, they all came running with no problem. They got in a long line and did jumping jacks and then did sprints back and forth. It was ADORABLE. I literally thought that I might melt from it. The boys were instructed to make a lap around the park and Colin ended up holding hands with his buddy Jack. Oh my lord, it was sweet. Then they started learning the game and Colin was 100% into it! I could not believe it! His focus was right on and he listened to everything Dave and Nate told him. Coach Nate is Hayden's dad and Colin loves him, so that helps! He had no problem with wearing the helmet in order to bat and he was actually really good at it! He hit the ball on the first try each time he came to bat. He never got upset or frustrated, didn't cry and had a smile from ear to ear the whole time. He LOVED it! The boys were all so precious and seeing them playing a sport together as a team made my heart so full. I love these kids like they are my own family and there were times when I wanted to run out and just wrap them all up in a hug. I refrained, I swear. ;-) This experience made Colin seem so much older to me and it gave me a window into our future...I will miss the "baby days", but I am so excited to experience the rest of Colin's childhood with him!

Here are some of the super cute pictures that I got of the shenanigans!

Colin made it to the base! Look at how excited he is!!

Coach Nate showing the boys how to catch.
He hits the ball!
I love this one...he is SO happy and Dave is so incredibly sweet!

LOVE THIS! Getting "blastball ready" with Coach.

I'm Back!

2011-03-22T11:15:00.005-05:00

Spring Break is over, Colin is back at school, I made it to the grocery store and now I am going to update the blog. I should be cleaning the house and doing laundry. "Should" is the key word there.

A LOT has happened since my last post, most of which involves me being sick. At the beginning of March, I came down with the worst illness that I have ever had. It took me 3 full days before I realized that things were really bad and I finally went to the ER. After lots of tests, I finally found out that I had colitis, an infection of the colon. I got IV fluids, pain meds, anti-nausea meds and two antibiotics that made me really feel like death. That was tough...I had to take them 3 times a day for 14 days, despite the fact that they made me sick as a dog. I won't lie, there were a few days there when I thought that something might be really wrong. It was the first time in my life that I felt what it was like to have a "long term" type illness that doesn't get any better. It made me very thankful for my health and very sad for those that battle disease on a daily basis. I ended up back at the doctor with my vision failing and hardly able to function. I was dehydrated, all my veins had collapsed because of it, and I had to sit for 3 hours with a tiny butterfly IV that they finally managed to get in the top of my hand. That was the low point, but about 5 days later, I was much better. THANK GOD! I was sick for 15 days and now, two weeks after the low point, I am still not 100%, but close to it. My stomach is still upset more than it should be and I don't eat a whole lot. But that, I can handle. :-) I have another appointment with a digestive health doctor next week and will hopefully know more then. I am back to being happy, functioning in society, and overall feeling good. And I am saying a little prayer that I NEVER have to take those damn meds again! Whew!

During this long time of illness, Colin was amazing. We didn't go anywhere and he basically spent 3 weeks entertaining himself while I whimpered on the couch that I couldn't play. NOT fun. He was a rock star and really took care of me. He knew that I was sick and did things on his own that he never would have normally. He even had to go with me to the doctors office that day and played quietly for the whole 3 hours! The nurses brought him snacks and even apples and grapes from their own lunches because I couldn't leave without the IV fluids. They were so great and I am beyond thankful for the whole office! Thank you, Dr. Buffington! Colin really showed me how wonderful he is and what a helpful boy he is growing up to be. I was also reminded that I am blessed with the best friends that anyone could ever have. All of my friends were so worried and all offered to bring dinner and take care of Colin. We had an outpouring of prayers and love from everyone!

Finally, the fog of sickness has cleared and we are enjoying the WONDERFUL Texas springtime! The weather is beautiful, and we are spending lots of time outside. We had a fun park playdate for St. Patrick's Day, an afternoon at our friend Heather's house and a fantastic Friday lunch at a Mexican place with an attached playground for the kids! That place was awesome...the ability to sit and enjoy lunch while your kids play is priceless! I actually ended up with a bit of a sunburn that afternoon and it felt GREAT! It feels great to be back in the land of the living! :-) There will be more posts to come very shortly with Colin updates and pictures! He started his first ever team...Blastball!

The Latest From Colin

2011-02-22T20:12:00.002-06:00

Colin is so...well...Colin. I find him to be hysterical and brilliant and pretty adorable. Have I mentioned that before? ;-) He is such an interesting boy. We have been going to Occupational Therapy (OT) every Friday for several weeks now and he LOVES IT. On our second session, he struck up a conversation with one of the therapists who was waiting for her meal at the microwave. He asked her what her job there was, if she played with kids like Miss Cheryl, if she was a mom, if she liked knock knock jokes and then proceeded to ask her if they had recently vacuumed the floor. It was so funny and she was, of course, immediately in love with him. Cheryl (our OT) ended up telling me yesterday that everyone in the office thinks that Colin is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Nobody wins people over like Colin. He has had a lot of awesome things to say lately...in fact, Miss Cheryl spends most of the therapy hour looking up at me over Colin's head with wide eyes and raised eyebrows. He does say some pretty over the top things for a 3 year old, but I am used to it and really have nothing to compare it against. She looked shocked so many times on Friday that I actually started giggling. Here are a couple of his most recent additions to the conversation. I want to write them down so that I don't forget what a funny little 3 year old he was!

"Mommy, teachers are community helpers. They are there to help you learn. I already know everything, so I don't need to go back to school."

*he asked me yesterday if I knew where his pieces of chalk went. I told him that I didn't know and his response was, "Well, they didn't just get up and walk off!" Now, where on earth did he learn that?!

He really does make us laugh constantly these days. We had a moment last night that was just too sweet, and a bit sad...but mostly super cute! He asked to watch "Angelina Ballerina" after seeing several commercials for it on various DVD's that we have. We stream Netflix onto our television and I saw they had it. I turned it on for him last night and he LOVED IT. However, at the end of the hour, he burst into tears. Real tears, heavy crying, chest heaving and shuddering...the whole nine yards. We were immediately hovering over him asking what happened - I assumed he had hurt himself! He finally managed to choke out, "I want to dance ballet, but I am a boy! Boys can't dance ballet, but I really want to! I am not a girl, so I can't dance ballet!" ...all the while crying his little eyes out. I assured him over and over that if he wanted to take ballet, then he could absolutely do it! We had a very long conversation about how boys can be great dancers and that he would win over every little girl on earth if he danced. Oh my goodness, he was so upset! I had to promise him over and over again that if he wanted to take a dance class that he absolutely could and that I would go with him. It was not exactly a conversation that I pictured myself having, but I am totally okay with that. I have a lot of conversations with Colin that I never imagined I would. ;-)

In related news, after some research today, a big dance studio here offers boys only classes! How cool is that!? Things have totally changed since I was little! The boys program starts at age 5, so if Colin does decide that he wants to take classes this fall, he will still be mixed in with the girls (which I think he will love, anyway), but after that, he would have his own special program. Apparently, it is very popular and there are lots of boys in the program! Regardless, as far as I am concerned, Colin can do whatever makes him happy. Besides, can you imagine how many girls would swoon over a boy who can dance?! And why can I only picture Kent from last season of SYTYCD? :-)

Valentine's Day and Tyler

2011-02-15T09:54:00.002-06:00

First of all, the Valentine's party last Thursday was everything I hoped it would be. :-) I arrived a bit early and just happened to catch Colin's class walking around the hallways looking for the letters "R" and "S". Miss Gina was leading them and they were all walking together so nicely and calling out letters when they saw them. Colin was at the front of the line with McKenna, which was a common theme during the afternoon. I hung back and watched and he was being so polite and sweet. I long to be a fly on the wall to watch Colin interact in school, so it was fun to walk in on this little bit of his day. When the kids got back to the classroom, they all lined up against the wall and got their Valentine holders all ready to go. Each child got to hand out his own Valentines with Miss Gina and it was just the cutest process ever. I loved how Colin knew every single child by name when the teachers told him who to take each card to. Obviously he would know everyone, but seeing Colin have this life outside of what I do with him still overwhelms me. He sat by McKenna the entire time and this is the same girl who he came home talking about on the first day. He clearly adores her and the feeling is mutual. They were inseparable the entire time. Colin had to have at least some part of his body touching her and I was melting from the sweetness. They even sat by each other during the snack afterwards! McKenna had to have heart surgery (!) in October and missed a month of school. Colin talked non-stop about where she was, who was operating on her, how long it would take her to come back and everything in between. If you ask Colin who his best girl friend is, he will alternate between saying "McKenna" and "Mallory". I find this dynamic to also be so cute...Colin loves Mallory, but she does not appear to even know he exists. She is very cute, but Colin didn't go near her the entire time. I think McKenna is the girl next door and Mallory is the heartbreaker who is already intimidating him. I hope he figures out that the McKenna's of this world are the ones he needs to stick with! ;-)

McKenna is in the pink shirt next to Colin in the solid red. They seriously did not leave each others side!

The kiddos having their V-day snacks. McKenna is on the end by Colin (looking at the camera)

Colin saying his prayer...SO cute! That is his best friend Keaton beside him.

Colin and McKenna during the Valentine party

Taking a turn handing out Valentines with Miss Gina

That is Mallory handing Colin a Valentine. She is the heartbreaker. LOL!

Showing me his little delivery box!

I love this one...Colin is sneaking a peek at his friend Presley's stuff!

On Friday, we went to Tyler for "the birthdays". My sisters turned 30 on the 8th, my mom's big day was Saturday and my dad is today. Jer's is the 21st and my bro-in-law is the 28th, so February is a bit packed! We were supposed to go the weekend before, but the ice-pocalypse ruined that plan. We had dinner on Friday night at Bruno's (as usual) and then had the official birthday dinner at El Chico on Saturday. We all drank Mexican martinis and ate a ton of food. Colin was a bit off his game on this trip...he was really worn out. He actually crawled in my lap at El Chico and slept for the entire dinner. It was INSANE. This trip was a lot of fun because my niece Pryce seemed to really grow since I saw her at Christmas. Colin loves her SOOO much and is constantly hugging her and asking to "give her a pet" on her head. He has always been this way with her, but this trip she started giving it back! She walked up to Colin on several occasions and wrapped her chubby baby arms around him...he was over the moon about it and of course, I loved it more than words can say!

All in all, we had a great and VERY busy week. The weather is amazing at the moment and I am currently wearing shorts and a t-shirt and so is Colin. LOVE IT! I can't believe it is already time to go buy new t-shirts...his short sleeves and shorts from last summer are way too small. I will leave this post with two shots of Colin and his cousin Pryce from over the weekend! SO CUTE!

He LOVES HER!

Winter DRAGS ON!

2011-02-10T09:53:00.004-06:00

To avoid sounding like a broken record, I won't begin this post by discussing how long it has been since my last post. ;-) It has basically been snowing since I wrote last. That is only a slight exaggeration. Last week, we were stuck in our house for 4 solid days. It was miserable! The ice storm hit on Monday night and the temps didn't pull above 20 degrees all week. You could literally ice skate down our block. The school district was closed for a record 4 days in a row and we couldn't make it out of the house. Jer did manage to get to work each day, but it took him hours to drive the 25 miles to DFW. It was a nightmare! The Super Bowl was here last weekend and I am convinced that every sand truck was sent to Dallas for the tourists. It seemed so strange that none of the roads or highways were cleared...even the busiest of roads remained impassible all week long. It iced again yesterday morning, but nothing like last week and it looks like we will FINALLY warm up this weekend! Thank heavens...I need to get out of this house and stop cooking!

Which brings me to my next topic...I need to seek help for my cooking issues. I can't stop! I was doing better, but with all the snow and being stuck in the house, I am back to cooking like crazy. I made braised pork ribs and polenta, chicken pot pie, chili, cornbread, from scratch banana pudding, loaded oatmeal cookies, pot roast and mashed potatoes...that is just what I can remember off the top of my head from the last couple of weeks. I love to cook so much, but I have to get back to my chicken breasts or I won't be ready for a bathing suit! ;-) In all fairness to me, I started delivering all the sweets to my two pregnant neighbors. They are starting to get mad that I am fattening them up, but it lets me keep cooking if I don't eat the whole batch myself! :-) I am dusting off my cooking light recipes as we speak. Seriously. I mean it this time. Really. Probably. More or less.

Colin is now obsessed with space. I love it when I see his interests grow and change and now he is consumed with the planets. He talks about them ALL the time and loves to ask the most random questions that I have no idea how to answer. Last week, he woke up one morning and asked me immediately how big Saturn was. When I could not exactly answer that, he ordered me to get his "space book" and also look up how big Earth and Venus are. It was so adorable. While playing fireman last night, he randomly looked up and said, "Mommy, did you know that Neptune is a stormy planet?"...I went and got the space book myself at that point and sure enough, there was a line about Neptune having very high winds. I purchased the "Twilight Turtle" nightlight for Colin a couple of weeks ago and he LOVES it. It is a plush turtle whose back projects stars and the moon around the room when you turn it on. Colin named him "Bustard" and we spend quite awhile looking at the stars now when we go to bed. I am enjoying the switch to space...it is nice to play something other than fireman. :-)

Today is Colin's Valentine's party at school and I MAY have gotten a little out of control with said valentines. I loved Valentine's Day at school when I was little. It seems odd, being such a silly little holiday, but making the boxes and then having all your friends (even the boys!) deliver cards to you...I just thought it was the greatest thing ever. I loved the cupcakes and cookies and most especially, I loved carefully sorting through all the cards to see what each person gave me. I remember paying close attention to which cards each boy gave me and if it meant that my favorite boy "liked" me. HA!! I was serious about choosing which cards went to which friend and I worked really hard to make them beautiful. In high school, you could buy a flower and have it delivered to someone during homeroom. I think it was a fundraiser for the Student Senate, but regardless, it was awesome. I would wait on the edge of my seat every year to see if someone sent me a flower. It was usually just my mom, but still. ;-) SOOO, needless to say, I was super excited to find out that Colin has having his first Valentine's Day party. I put together little gift bags with a card, plastic dinosaur, kazoo, notebook and candy. I made little name cards to go in each one and even added some glitter. I honestly had a blast making them! I also picked the cutest cards for Colin's best friend and best girlfriend. hehehe!

Finally, here are a couple of pictures from our trip to the botanic gardens in Fort Worth. We went with some of our friends the weekend before the "Ice-pocalypse" and it seems crazy that it was 80 degrees that day. Texas weather is crazy! Colin and Hayden were so adorable...I am looking forward to this weekend so that we can get outside again!!

My Cherub

2011-01-18T20:03:00.003-06:00

The flu chronicles continue with a glimpse into my day...

It is about 5:30pm. I went to the kitchen to work on dinner and Colin begged to lay in the living room. He had been tucked away in my bed all day, with the exception of the trip to the pediatrician. I promptly agreed and made him a very cozy bed on the couch, complete with pillows and blankets and his train table pulled up next to him for placement of Kleenex box and juice. I made dinner and he watched "The Fresh Beat Band". I made him spaghetti, which he couldn't bring himself to eat. I made myself a bowl of pasta and sat down on the end of the couch with him. He is a mess today...his hair, which is getting too long, is rumpled and messy; he is wearing his car pajama shirt from last night and a pair of firetruck underwear. His little face is so pale and his eyes are big and glassy. They are rimmed with pink circles and his nose is red on the end from wiping it. His lashes, which are so long and full that I ache with jealousy over them, seem dark and heavy and are damp on the ends from his eyes watering. His lips are slightly chapped and therefore look rather rosy. He is leaning against his pillows and looks like a sick little cherub sitting there, all tired and feeling icky. All I can think when I stare at him is how adorable he is and how big and tiny he seems to be all at the same time. He then said, "Mommy, tell me about candy. I love popsicles and suckers. Are both of those candy?". I told him that popsicles didn't generally count in the candy category, although I could see where that would be confusing. He then asked me to name various other examples of candy. I start to name a few (Snickers...Twix...Skittles) and as I talk, he pulls his knees up and props his right elbow on one. He then rests the side of his precious face against his palm and sighs as he listens. He asks me several questions from that position, including inquiries into all the candy bars that have nuts because "I really don't like nuts" and then, in a fast moving topic change, why carnivals and fairs are not always in town. For some reason, this whole little moment was so cute and wonderful and sweet that I decided to write it down immediately. He looked so forlorn and sick, but so unwittingly adorable at the same time. He likes it when I sit down and just listen to him. He actually sighed when I devoted my attention to a discussion of candy. He chimed in frequently with things like, "What other kinds are there, Mama? " and "What is your favorite candy?". I love him so much. I do. I'm just saying. :-)

A Mom at Midnight

2011-01-18T18:27:00.004-06:00

He is sick. The doctor says it is a light case of the flu, but I think the phrase "light case" was thrown in to make me feel better about the fact that Colin got the mist vaccine instead of the shot. Apparently kids who had the mist this year are still catching the flu...at least more than the kids who got the shot. I will remember this next year. Hopefully.

He has had three very long days and two sleepless nights and overall just a horrible no good very bad week. We are both so tired, my boy and I. I slept in his bed during the first night and he ended up in our bed last night, during a disaster of a midnight fever spike. The poor baby was in hysterics and literally burning up with fever. I finally got him moved to my bed, but he passed out right where I laid him, which left me just about 6 inches of mattress space. I should have climbed up into the bed and tucked myself in the very center. At the time, Enzo was splayed out down the middle of the bed with his head on the pillow right next to my husband. A rational woman would have kicked her dog to the curb and settled into slumber. I, however, did not even think about the huge open softness of the middle of the bed, or of my snoring slumbering fat dog or even of my 6 tiny inches of mattress. Instead, I precariously positioned myself on the sliver of remaining bed by my nightstand and laid my head down so close to Colin's that I could feel his coughs on my cheeks. I tucked the edge of the covers around my calves and proceeded to think "my baby. fever. too high. emergency room? don't be insane. 1am. breathing too hard? cough too deep? emergency room? don't be that mom. go to sleep. sleep. do it. no school tomorrow. call teachers. not now. 1am. he is too hot. emergency room? crazy person." I finally fall asleep, but wake up seemingly every few minutes to the sounds of coughing and the feel of hot baby skin pressed up to me somewhere. I shifted around on my tiny island of space and waited impatiently for the sun to finally put an end to the night. The morning will make it better. We can watch cartoons and make coffee. We can turn all the lights on and I can tuck him into the middle of my bed with a box of Kleenex and apple juice and pop tarts. Mornings are better for moms. Coughs and fevers are much worse at 2am.

A Mid-January List of Ramblings

2011-01-10T14:50:00.003-06:00

It's January. It's cold. It snowed. For some reason, this puts me in the mood for a random list of information in no specific order. So here we go!

1. We finally FINALLY came up on the waitlist for the pediatric occupational therapy group and had our first appointment, which was part of the long evaluation process, last Monday. We were there for hours and won't get the official results until we go back this Friday. Colin was absolutely wonderful through the whole process and was his usual sweet self. He acted very true to form and I felt like the therapist got a good representation of him from our visit. She kept saying randomly that he was "so extremely sweet" and things like "I don't think I have ever met a sweeter child", which was nice. While I don't have a lot of details, I know he qualifies for services because the therapist asked us to go ahead and make a weekly standing appointment. She also jumped right in and offered good practical tips for helping Colin with some of his sensitivities and offered insight into some of the things he does. It was a great visit and I am anxious for Friday so that we can see what a therapy visit is like, as well as find out the results from the testing. She pointed out a couple of things that I had not noticed at all, like the fact that he does not use his pincer grasp, but instead uses his thumb and middle finger to pick things up and move them. She said that part of therapy will involve strengthening the muscles needed to use his pincer grasp properly, which will help him learn to hold a writing utensil as well as silverware with more ease. He has struggled with holding forks and spoons and rarely takes more than 2 bites with them, but I had no clue that there could be a problem. So already, I am extremely thankful that we went. We also learned a very interesting tidbit of information while we were there. At one point toward the end of testing, the therapist kept giving Colin all sorts of things to pick up and put in a little container. She did it over and over again and then had him draw a picture for her twice. She then went back to the small objects and then held one of his hands down and watched him pick things up with the available hand. I had no clue what she was doing until she looked back at us and announced, "For the first time, I am truly stumped!" and went on to explain that Colin does not favor either hand over the other. It looks like he is completely ambidextrous! She said that she tried everything and could not get him to favor a side. He split everything evenly over both sides of his body and when she held down his left hand, he would use the right hand, but still cross over the left side of his body to put it in that bin. She had apparently never seen anything like it. Interesting stuff for sure! Apparently, this is very rare and ambidextrous kids have a hard time learning to write because they frequently switch back and forth, sometimes even mid-sentence. So crazy! I gave Colin mac and cheese for lunch today and asked him to practice eating with his spoon for me. He switched the spoon from hand to hand almost every other bite. I had noticed him doing that before and we could never figure out his preference. Jeremy is pretty much ambidextrous, so I don't know why I was shocked. He writes with his left hand, but throws, bats and shoots with his right. I think it must be the mark of a genius...my two brilliant boys. :-)

2. We threw away pull-ups a couple of weeks ago and haven't looked back. Colin has been FULLY trained at school since the day it started back in September. Home, however, was a different story. I have tried very hard not to push him and take it one day at a time. I also could not get him to wear underwear because he didn't like the different feel of them, which is just a typical sensory thing. I got his teachers in on things and they told him that they really wanted to see Colin in regular underwear when he came back from Christmas. So we finished the pull-ups and then he agreed to wear underwear to school, simply because he didn't want to disappoint his teachers. It worked like a charm! :-) We have not looked back since, but he does have lots of accidents at home. I have to remind him to stop what he is doing to go, which works fine, but if I forget to tell him, he forgets to go! He absolutely does not have accidents outside the house or at school, so I am hoping that he soon starts remembering on his own here. He has also not wet the bed once and wakes up completely dry every morning. So I know he is ready and the home problem is one of conditioning. Colin being Colin, whenever he has an accident, he erupts into tears and begins saying, "Mommy, are you mad or sad? Please don't be mad or sad! I am so sorry!". That breaks my heart! I have never EVER shown a bit of anger or even frustration when he has an accident, but regardless, he is still so worried about it.

3. Colin looked at me yesterday and said, "Mom, would it be cool to open a restaurant in a dog park so that if people get hungry, they can eat while their dogs play?". I told him that was actually a very good idea. This represents yet another moment when I reflected internally on how much smarter Colin is than yours truly.

4. Colin asked me what made our heads hard. I told him that a skull is a big bone that protects the brain and it is very hard. He said, "I wish that we could go somewhere and get an x-ray of our skulls so that we could look at our brains. And Enzo's." He went on to ask me to tell him the name of every bone in our body. I told him that he would have to google that one.

5. I got a NookColor for Christmas and Colin loves it. LOVES IT. I left it where he could reach it a couple of days ago, and he managed to turn it on, close the book I was reading, go to the home page and choose a childrens book and start it. Without me showing him how at all. I really wish we had an I-Pad because Colin has a hard time using the computer mouse (now I know why!), but give that kid a touch screen and he can figure out anything. He got his own reader for Christmas that uses the same touch technology and he adores it.

6. I have been a very bad girl this week. We had a cold front blow through here a couple of nights ago and it brought snow, ice and freezing temps. I took this to mean that I needed to cook chili and cornbread, pot roast and mashed potatoes with fresh rolls, potato leek soup (currently on the stove) and broccoli soup with homemade croutons (for tomorrow). CLEARLY, this is not a good diet week for Chalna. In my defense, I have been eating Special K and blueberries for breakfast and light lunches. However, my next trip to the grocery store will not include heavy cream. I refuse to gain back the weight that I tried so hard to lose. I only gained 4 lbs over the entire holiday season, which is pretty good for me, but those 4 lbs are going away! This week notwithstanding, of course. ;-)

7. Colin has taken to watching "A Baby Story" and "Make Room for Multiples" on TLC. This happened by accident one morning a few days ago when Jer turned the TV on. Colin saw a baby and asked him not to change the channel. I walked in several minutes later to find Colin watching a woman give birth. Granted, this is TLC, so they don't show too much, but it was the real deal. He started asking me questions, so I sat down and watched with him and answered as much as I could. I was shocked that he watched the whole show. The next show was about the multiples, which he asked to watch, too. That lady had a c-section, which I tried to turn off, but Colin went nuts and begged me to keep it on. I explained what the doctors were doing and that sometimes the doctors have to do surgery to help a baby be born. He didn't even flinch while watching and stayed glued to his seat for the entire half hour, which was mostly about the family being home with multiple newborns and taking care of them. We have watched both shows several mornings since and he adores them, c-sections and all. Heavens!

8. Back to my most prized possession...the NookColor. I can't stop reading. I literally can't. This present was like buying an alcoholic a bottle of vodka for Christmas. I am out of control. I have been averaging one book every 3 days, on top of all my magazines. I have had this problem my whole life, but the Nook takes it to a whole new level. I learned to read when I was 3, partially because of my brilliant mother and mostly because I was born a reading genius. I can say that without sounding like an ass because I am also math illiterate. Seriously. I still use my fingers to count. Anyway, I have always had an obsession with reading and the Nook is blowing my mind. As I am reading, if I see a word that I don't know, I just tap on it and I can have the definition and background pulled up right in front of me. I. LOVE. THIS. THING. Go get one. You MUST...even if you aren't a lunatic like me.

The Last Picture of 2010 and Assorted NYE Goodness!

2010-12-31T22:06:00.002-06:00

First of all and most importantly...THE LAST PICTURE OF 2010! The quality is horrible, the cord for the wreath coming through the door is very classy and we all look insane, but last official picture it is! :-) I love this little family tradition and wonder how many years Colin will humor me with it. I can picture the one when he is 17 and trying to leave for a party...that one might be interesting!

Here are a couple of outtakes...Colin said this one could not be "official" because it is missing Enzo, but I actually like it better. Colin looks so cute, despite the microphone stand that I forgot to move. Jer is cracking me up in that hat. ;-)

Colin actually took this one and I love it! Not bad for a 3 year old! We had a wonderful party night together!

SO...Here we are again and I am in utter disbelief, as usual. New Years Eve. 2010 is officially over in a couple of hours and I am sitting in bed with Jer, watching ~~Dick Clark~~ Ryan Seacrest and the ball dropping in NYC. We celebrated as we have for the last few years with a big surf and turf meal. It was wonderful! We started the day with breakfast at I-Hop, which was probably the worst food that we have had in a long time. There is clearly a reason that we don't go there anymore! YIKES! We ran errands afterward and then I left Colin home with Jer so that I could make my annual Central Market run for the ingredients for the big meal. It was CRAZY crowded and I was forced to park several stores over and walk, which made me very glad that I went by myself! I picked up some stunning filet mignon and shrimp and a big bottle of some delicious champagne that I am currently drinking with a splash of Chambord. :-) The big dinner ended up being filet with goat cheese and a shallot red wine reduction, garlic roasted broccoli, mashed potatoes and a loaf of crusty ciabatta bread. We also had shrimp cocktail and some different cheeses and crackers for an appetizer. Colin was treated to his favorite meal of 2010...spaghetti! I find myself looking forward to our tradition happily, although it is much different than parties of years past. We spent the evening playing with Colin in his new playhouse until it was time for bed. Colin has a little stuffed animal named "Peanut" that he got when he was born. It is one of his special "lovies". He decided this evening that we had to refer to him as "Peanut's Dad" instead of Colin and he picked Peanut up from school, cooked for him, fed him, played with him, put him to bed and the whole nine yards. His playhouse was turned into his home with Peanut and I made a makeshift baby bed out of a box for Colin to use. He tucked Peanut in carefully and then took the bed with us to watch our show before bed. He then carried the bed quietly into his room and tucked it into his own bed while we read stories. It was the sweetest thing ever and the most wonderful and precious way to end 2010. I told Jer afterwards that I am so certain that Colin will do something with his life that involves taking care of others. I don't know if that is simply being a wonderful father or a career path, but I know in my heart that he will be one amazing caregiver for the rest of his life. And those are my final thoughts for 2010. Well, that and one other thing...a girl named "Ke$ha", whose song "Tik Toc" combines not only her inability to spell but her complete lack of talent and the use of beautiful poetry like "I brush my teeth with a bottle of Jack", had the top selling song of 2010. Thank the lord it is time for a new year!