July 2011

Ethan's first school crush

When I was 4 a little boy in my kindergarten class, Chris, asked me to go the circus with him and his family. I was super excited and told my mom when I got home as I jumped around the room. My mom called his mom to get the details - what day, what time, etc. - but instead, the boy's mother had no idea that I had been invited along. Rather than spoil the excitement, the mother was a good sport and I went with them in the end and everyone had a good laugh.

In 2nd grade, my boyfriend Matt brought me the most beautiful gold bracelet. He said he saved his money and bought it just for me. He helped me put it on at school and I wore it home that afternoon to show my mother who seemed a bit horrified. I didn't understand. Clearly this bracelet was beautiful, how could she not like it? She immediately phoned his mother, asking if she was perhaps missing a gold bracelet. "Gee" she said "I'm not sure, let me look." Sure enough, Matt's hard-earned purchase was really stolen from his mother's jewelry box.

I should have realized the road I had ahead of me now that I'm a mom of two boys. I guess I wasn't prepared for it to start so soon.

Ethan has been attending the same preschool since January and every Tuesday and Thursday, he shares stories of his day - what he had for lunch, what he made for craft, and who he sat next to during circle time. As the weeks went on, I started noticing a pattern. Most of the time, he spoke of the girls in his class. The older girls at that. "Sydney wore a pretty dress today". "I sat next to Ava". "I'm going to marry Kaley". Screeee - hold up. How old are you? Four! Since when do 4-year-olds talk about walking down the aisle? My heart pounds, my palms sweat and my eyes well up as I envision dancing with my son at his wedding and losing him forever. I'm crazy, I know.

And so it begins. My little boy is girl crazy. It's cute and troublesome all at the same time.

The other night after we snug-as-a-bug-in-a-rugged the boys into bed (I never really understood that whole snug-as-a-bug-in-a-rug thing...kind of strange when you think about it...but I digress), Ethan tiptoed downstairs minutes later with one last request. "Mommy, when I wake up, can we get paper, markers and stickers and draw hearts on it for Sydney?" He was so sincere. "Of course, my sweet".

The next morning, we did just that.

Then, last night, we tucked the most adorable handmade love note into his backpack for him to bring to Miss Sydney. Of course not without taking a photo of it first! I'll tell you, it was hard for me to part with that note. I wanted to stash it in his keepsake box to ~~embarrass~~ show him years down the road. But Ethan wouldn't let me. He neeeeded to give it to his one true love.

Front - Ethan did it all by himself (with the exception of me helping him draw a few hearts)

Back - Notice there are 3 stick figures. The one on the right is Ethan.
The other two are Sydney and Ava...

"What do you think Sydney will say when you give it to her," I prodded. "She will probably say she wants to marry me," Ethan said with a huge grin.

This morning, as we got ready for school, he hit me with another whopper. "Mommy, what can I wear today that will make me look reeeeaaallllly cute?"

"Just about anything, son," with a tug at my heart.

Sydney is one lucky girl. The first of many I'm sure.

**UPDATE** Sydney was not at school yet when we arrived, so we stuck the card in her cubby. She is in a different class than Ethan as she is 5 and will be starting Kindergarten this fall. Later that day, Ethan informed me that Sydney came into the lunchroom and said "Thank you for my card". He was so excited to tell me that :)

Playing catch-up

Although there are still a few weeks of summer left, it feels as if it is coming to a close (well, it would if it weren't for the 100+ temps here in Austin).

My highly anticipated and amazingly fun summer travel is over, capped off with a visit from my parents and my nephews Andy and Ben who drove from KY to hang with us for a week. Despite it being one of the most exhausting weeks ever (who knew you could cram so much fun stuff into 7 days?) - I was truly sad to see them go. Especially since there are no visitors on the horizon for quite some time (January, Audrey?!?!) I am happy to hear that my parents plan to rent their place in Florida once again this year after Christmas, so it looks like after our visit back home for the holidays we will be joining them at the beach for a while. But still, 6 months is a long ways away... :(

I guess I must now focus on getting back into the swing of things at home - which includes addressing the piles of mail I've hidden in my desk for the past few weeks and the other items I've neglected on my to-do list. The boys start back to school this week which should allow me to regroup and get things in order.

I will be taking Aiden to Dallas on Wednesday for a follow-up visit with Dr. Fearon. His surgery on May 26th went well (to straighten his index finger and deepen the space between his big toe on his left foot), however the healing has been a much longer process than anticipated. After the pins were removed from his finger in Louisville at the end of June, we were concerned with the amount that it "re-turned" to it's curved position. We were told that because the procedure was done at an early age, the tendons and muscles would naturally pull it back into it's original placement. But that the degree to which it was turned (about 90 degrees) warranted going ahead with the operation. While it isn't back to it's 90 degree position, it is probably about half way there. Aggravating to think he went through this surgery without the results we were expecting, but overall I think he has been using his finger a bit more than prior to the procedure, which was the purpose of going through with it now.

His foot is still healing. The skin graft - attached to the inner side of the toe - did not take, which all in all isn't a problem. But it has made for an increased healing time and an increasingly anxious Aiden anticipating each of the 3x/day dressing changes. He wakes up in the morning saying "Don't do my wraps mommy". I put it off as long as I can, but eventually it just has to be done...and it's a 2 person job. One person has to hold my poor guy down (DANG is he strong!) and the other (me) removes the old wraps and replaces them with fresh ones. This whole process includes a SCREAMING, thrashing, sweaty little boy, a nervous and sad mommy and usually some bleeding. It only takes about 5 minutes start to finish, but it completely wears out everyone involved, especially Aiden. It breaks my heart.

So anyway, we are interested to see what Dr. Fearon thinks about how it looks and hope he can give us some insight into how much longer the dressing changes will need to be done or how close we are to it being completely healed. The good news is this hasn't slowed Aiden down one bit this summer. After he gets over the exhausting dressing change process, he bounces back and plays like nothing is wrong.

Looking forward to getting back into a routine around here...and catching up on some much needed sleep! Hope everyone else's summer is going well!

Summer fun!

Sorry for the lack in posting lately. I have been busy busy busy traveling back to the good ole' midwest visiting friends and family. And while each city could inspire an entire blog post in and of itself, I'm going to take the lazy man's way for the time being and just upload a bajillion photos until I get my suitcases unpacked and my brain unclogged from my vacation hangover.

So without further ado...

< King's Island >