Mommy.... It's my favorite name

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...

After work my husband and I try to recap and we will be talking about daily events, occasionally one of us will say “oh did you hear ‘so-an-so’ passed away?” The other day we were all in the car and we were talking about the little boy who was left in the car and had died because of the heat.   Jacob is now immediately interested in what we are talking about. “What, mommy?”, “Who died?” “Can I see?” “Tell me about it?” I don’t know if it is just me but this is a subject that I find difficult to explain to him;   Mainly because in some instances I too find it difficult to wrap my head around.   You hope that everyone will live a long life and pass away peacefully in their beds, while this is still difficult for the family that will miss that loved one, it is easier to understand. When a little kid passes away Jake always asks “Why? They weren’t old?” This question alone, not only breaks my heart for the parents who are suffering the loss their baby, but to all the chi...

Saturday for the second time in my life I packed up an entire Rubbermaid container full of 12-month little boy clothes.   I folded and placed all the little pajamas, and outfits away for storage.   One day I will sell them along with the five other totes that are full of my little boys previous smaller sized wardrobes…(or use them again)….who knows?   But for now they are packed in this container and ready to go to my parents where I store all the tiny clothes for safe keeping. This morning I had gotten Jimmy out of his crib and was changing his clothes for school, Jake came in as he usually does to excitedly greet Jimmy for the new day.   They give their hugs and kisses and Jimmy smiles and repeats “Jakey! Jakey! Hi Jakey!” and Jake will reply back with “I missed you Jimmy; I haven’t seen you for a long time!” All so very sweet. Today as we walked out of Jimmy’s room to get loaded up in the car Jake asked me “Mommy, what are you doing with all of Jimmy’s clothe...

Yesterday morning was a beautiful day and started out fantastically. The boys and I were on time, for the first time in weeks.   So as I was driving I cranked my music and rolled down the windows to enjoy the perfect day. When my little Jake told me the music I was listening to sounded awful….Now his daddy often times doesn’t like my music, but seriously I thought I had a little more time with my fun pop radio hits before I was totally shut down by boys! When we got to school one of his little classmates who always runs to give me hugs and say hi in the morning came running like he always has, “Yay, Angie is here!” but this day he sweetly patted my tummy and exclaimed “and she having a baby!” I am not offended by this as I have 3 year old myself and the stuff that comes out of his mouth is mind-blowing. I took it with a grain a salt, however when I turned to give my Jake a kiss and this little boy lifted up my skirt “looking for the baby to come out” I got slightly more em...

When my sisters and I were growing up we got to run and bike through the streets of our neighborhood. We would play outside and meet up with the other neighborhood kids and play from sun up, until sun down.   All of our parents would call one to another to check in on us and I think each trusted we were in good care no matter what house.   That said, it didn’t matter which house, if one of us was acting up it was any parent that was allowed to discipline. We were all good kids but I can remember the two times that I said a bad word and my friend’s dad yelled at me. I remember my mom telling one of my sisters’ friends to “knock off the whining.” When this happened I didn’t run home to tell my mom that “Leah’s dad” yelled at me. I was too busy praying to God that she didn’t find out that he HAD to yell at me, because what I was doing was not behavior she would have approved of either. My Sisters and I all knew if someone else had to reprimand us for our behavior, not onl...