Mommy.... It's my favorite name

Our first family vacation is right around the corner, I am beyond excited to have a week full of family time.   I can’t wait for my boys to see the ocean for the first time and witness the enormity of it and I am so eager to have them see the endless sand that surrounds the water.   We talk about the ocean and our vacation but until you see the ocean for the first time yourself, it is impossible to describe.   Even with my lack of affection, they LOVE sand and playing in it, but have not played in any other sand than the one in a small mid-western sandbox.   My husband and I have been to the beach and on vacations but this is the first one with the little boys. It will be amazing…..right? I am going to stay positive however I am not naive to the fact that traveling with two little boys who are not-quite four and not-quite- two for 16 hours in the car could get dicey at times.   We have the iPad, we have a DVD player in the car…. But what else? Our goal ...

When thinking about becoming a mommy for the first time I would dream if it would be a girl or boy, what we would name him or her, how I would decorate their nursery.   We talked about the expense of a child and we imagined if they would get my eyes or his nose.   We talked about our discipline techniques and things we would like to do, and things that we would never do. We planned vacations we wanted to take our kids on so they could see the world and talked how we would take couple vacations to keep “us” intact. We were ready for kids; we were excited for our baby on the way. Looking back we were like every other new parent… We had no idea what to do next but enjoy the ride of first time parents. We were very blessed that the dream of a baby became our reality…x2. There was and continues to be so many things that I NEVER thought of when thinking of my life with children.   Yes, I knew I would love them, “every parent loves their kids.” It is not until the n...

Several weeks ago we saw a picture of one of the girls that used to be a teacher in Jake’s room at daycare.   She and her boyfriend were all dressed up in the picture.   Jake immediately noticed it and told me “hey, that boy is wearing a tuxedo!” He recognized this because he got to wear a tuxedo a little over a month ago for my sister’s wedding, where he was one of the cutest ring bearers I have ever seen. (no bias at all) Jake asked me if the guy in the picture was going to be a ring bearer in a wedding too.   Mommy: No, he is going to prom Jake: But he is in a tuxedo Mommy: Yes, but you can wear a tuxedo to other fancy events too Jake: What is a prom? Mommy: It is a dance that you will get to go to when you ar e older. Jake: But I am older now, so can I go now? Mommy: No, You will want to ask a beautiful and very nice girl to go with you, and you guys can dress up and go out to eat at a nice restaurant. Jake: okay…..(30 second later) Jake: Mommy, you are ...

When you were little did you seem to think that the summers were soooooo long?   Do you remember the four-ish weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas being an excruciatingly long time to wait until Sana came? …I do! While I was growing up it seemed like time stood still, I would see aunts and uncles or my parent’s friends that hadn’t seen me in a while and they would always say “Oh my, I can’t believe how much you have grown?” I thought to my 10 year old self “really, I look the same as I did last month.”   I remember my mom and other adults saying “The older you get the faster time goes.”   While I know every minute is still 60 seconds and every hour is still 60 minutes, Time really has sped up. I think that I could get a unanimous agreement from other parents when I say, when you have a child you no longer feel there are 60 MINUTES in your hour, your hours go by like seconds and your years go by like minutes. Cardinal's game 2010 (pregnant with Jake) I a...