Mr. Lizard: The Unexpected Guest

I have to preface this story by saying that for the last three weeks the joy of John's life has been to go outside and look for "dizerds" (lizards). He spotted them one day and loves to search the tree and flower beds for "dizerds". Here he is in a standoff with a lizard (it's hard to tell but he's on the rock in the foreground)

So yesterday afternoon John, Anna, and I were making our daily pilgrimage from the indoors to the outdoors. I had the front door open and was moving our necessary equipment outside when I turned around and saw a lizard help himself into our home. YIKES! My worst nightmare! This wasn't a little green gecko, this was a nasty, bumpy, brown 5-inch lizard. EEEEEWWWWW!

I HATE all bugs and small wiggly creatures so this thing inside my home was detrimental to my mental stability. Especially since it waltzed right past Anna on the floor in her car seat. Ugh! I had visions of The Nasty running all over Anna's little body.

Anyway, the lizard ran into the dining room. I frantically ran to get a disposable plastic tupperware leaving John in the front playing with his T-ball set. I ran back to the dining room and covered The Nasty with the tupperware but then realized that if I moved my hand off the container the jumping lizard would knock it off and he'd escape again. What to do....

Anna is screaming in her car seat, John is outside and I am stuck holding a plastic tupperware over the lizard in our dining room. I start yelling for John to come inside. Thankfully, the little man was in an obedient mood. He came inside and was semi-excited and semi-scared to see that mom had trapped the most elusive of all front yard creatures....the DIZERD! He kept looking at it and saying "DIZERD, DIZERD" And I kept saying "DIRTY, YUCKY!" trying to discourage him from getting near us. I asked him to bring me his sippy cup so I could put it on top of the tupperware. Again, he obliged and brought me the sippy cup. Once we had dear "dizerd" trapped on the window sill I ran around the house trying to find some cardboard to slip under the tupperware so I could take him outside. All the while I was gagging and shivering and kept yelling "LIZARD! DIRTY! YUCKY!" I didn't want John to go un-trap his friend.

I finally found some cardboard and slipped the plastic container off the window sill onto the cardboard. Again, John helped me out and opened the door for me to ruuuuun and throw The Nasty into the bushes. Ugh! Shiver. Gross. GROSS! I still shiver thinking about it. John was so bewildered by this spectacle but then he wandered around the bush where I had thrown the lizard and kept saying "dirty....yucky....dirty....yucky"....My little boy now thinks lizards are called Dirtyyucky

Oh, what drama. A mama's gotta do what a mama's gotta do to get nasty creatures out of her children's abode. Here is the lizard John was staring down in the picture above. Although the one that came in our house was twice as big. It must've been the granddaddy of this one.

EEW! EEW! EEW!

NO, Anna! And Other Ramblings....

This is a long post so brace yourself. A lot of random stories to tell.


So a family friend came by yesterday to bring Anna and, of course, John a little gift. She placed John's toy on the coffee table. She also took out a pink nursing cover she made for me. She set the nursing cover on top of the toy on the coffee table.


Well, John was taking a nap during this visit and I usually hide toys that people get him or even we get him. They go in the "emergency toy stash" for, say, when it's raining all day and I need some new toy to make things exciting or when I need to do something and John wants my attention. Bring out the ETS!


Well, I forgot to hide this toy and when John woke up from his nap we were playing on the couch and his little eyes locked in on the toy. He pointed at it and said "THAT!" Oops! I couldn't hide it now....so John jumps off the couch and runs to the toy. Remember the pink nursing cover is on top of the toy. John grabs the nursing cover, throws it to the ground, and in a commanding tone firmly says "NO, Anna!" I burst out laughing. It was funny that he associated the color pink with Anna. It must have been the color? I can't imagine why he would bring up her name when she wasn't even in the room. Good thing she wasn't the nursing cover or she would've been a goner.


Ok, let's talk about the swine flu. John has been sick since Thursday. We took him to an urgent care clinic on Saturday because he was so grumpy, had been running a fever, and threw up a few times. Turns out he had a virus. I decided I should keep him home from school today. This is worse news for me because mama NEEDS that time. But I decided that since the first 20 minutes of national news was devoted to the swine flu and the impending PANdemic that I shouldn't bring my child with flu-like symptoms and a hacking cough to school to scare everyone off. I took him with me to Anna's 1 month check up and piggy-backed him in on her appointment. I know, I'm awesome for doing that. I probably caused an hour delay in her schedule today.....


Anna's stats are great. I think she's 50th percentile on weight and head size but 75th percentile on the length. So she's long/tall for her age at 21.5 inches. She weighs 9 lbs 4 oz. Hard to believe at one month she's still not as big as her brother when he was born. Yowsers!


But I digress.....turns out John has a respitory infection. His lungs were wheezing and we had to give him a breathing treatment in the doctor's office. Now, I had to do this to him last summer and it was a traumatic ordeal for both of us. Thankfully Kyle was with me today and even with two of us trying to restrain him it was almost impossible to get the mask to stay near his face. Kyle looked at me as we were tangled in a ferocious wrestling match to keep John's arms, legs, and head from flailing and said "You did this by yourself last time?" Yes. Yes I did. And it was one of the worst days of my life.


That whole situation has got to be bad for the psyche of a two year old. Two adults (even worse, your parents who you supposedly trust) holding you down against your will with brute force. It was bad. If you were within a 200 mile radius of Houston and heard a child screaming around 10:30 AM---that was my child.


On to the Great Houston Flood of 2009. Last night it started raining and it rained all night and into the morning. I had gotten up to feed Anna around 5 ish and Kyle came in the nursery and said my mom called to say their house was flooding. Ugh! What a pain in the booty. Apparently, two of Christina's rental houses had flooding too. So if you think of us, please pray for my parents and Christina to be able to get this taken care of quickly. It's such an inconvenience!

Rain, rain, go away! Come again another day! (and don't flood us out either!)

What is John Up To These Days?

I may not have as many pictures of John but we are enjoying his little personality tremendously.

John has become quite opinionated these days. He has certain ideas about what he wants to wear. I bought some new baseball pajamas which he LOVES. The other day he specifically asked to wear the "baseball shirt" before his nap and refused to take them off when he woke up. When Kyle came home he tried to put him in shorts to take him outside but John refused so he wore sandals with his baseball PJs to play outside. He looked ridiculous but whatever. Last night he insisted on wearing the "baseball shirt" with mismatched pajama pants. This really bothered me. In fact, I don't think it ever crossed my mind that someone would purposefully choose one shirt and a different bottom. I think it actually took about 5 seconds for that to even compute in my brain. I'm a matching, organized sort of person so to see two different pajamas on my son rubbed me the wrong way but I let John win that battle. Here John is modeling the famed and beloved PJs.

John is a big fan of his daddy too. Most evenings you can find John and Kyle in the front or back yard working. John has his own rake and shovel and enjoys helping Kyle run the sprinklers.

This picture is one of my favorites. I had just come outside to check on my boys and I had to laugh at John squatting and holding the water hose---JUST like dad. I mean, this is exactly why people say to be careful because your kids will copy what you do. Even in the smallest of things. John was so exacting in his attempt to be just like Daddy.

Kyle and I are fascinated by the words he uses and remembers. We enjoy translating his language and figuring out what he is trying to communicate to us. Sometimes if you listen real closely to his "monologues" you can pick out a few words that tell you what he is trying to say. It is really fascinating to see his development start speeding up.

He can be a serious little fellow and a bit shy around new people but once he's comfortable with you, you are his best friend. He definitely has a personal comfort zone that he doesn't like invaded by new people. He loves to people-watch (like his mom) and is very observant of his surroundings (like his dad).

I've been meaning to post these pictures from the Easter festival we attended. You can tell from this photo diary that John is a no nonsesnse sort of dude sometimes. (Read the captions for my interpretation of his thoughts)

And here is John in silly mode---I got the rare and elusive smile for the camera this time.

Thank Goodness for Bumpy Road!

Well, one of my fears of being at home with the 2 kids was trying to entertain John while nursing Anna. About a week ago I discovered our "nursing time distraction". A game we play while I'm nursing Anna if he's starting to get needy. It's called Bumpy Road or as John says...."Bumpy Wooooaaaad!"

He has these minature cars that my mom had stuffed into Easter eggs that he is absolutely obsessed with. When I'm nursing Anna I prop my feet up on the coffee table and John runs his cars up and down my legs declaring "bumpy road!" What does that say about my legs?? Hmmmm....

Anyways, I thought this was just a one time thing but it seems now that every time I sit down to nurse Anna John gets excited about playing Bumpy Road. I told Kyle yesterday "Thank goodness for Bumpy Road! What would I do with out it..." HA! I'm sure this will last for a while and then I'll have to find a new diversion but for now it's nice to share a special game with John while I'm feeding Anna.

And here is my latest Anna picture.
I finally broke down and bought a cute newborn size outfit for her to wear. She has been relegated to wearing a rotation of 5 newborn size onesies Christina had bought her. It's the only thing that fits but finally, 3 weeks later, I was sick of seeing her in the same 5 outfits. I had to get this little dress that was on super sale and I had a coupon for it too---I was able to justify buying such a teeny outfit. And, naturally, I had to take A LOT of pictures.

Stay tuned...the next post will be a John update!

A Busy 3 Weeks!

What're YOOOOUUUUU looking at? A girl's gotta have pearls, right????

Let's see...what have I been up to for my first three weeks on earth? Well, for one, noting the first picture, posing for ridiculous pictures is high on the list....

Meeting my cousin, Nathan, for the first time....

Cuddling with Mammaw....

Cuddling with Mimi....

Yawning....

Being compared to a Freebird's Super Monster Burrito (long story).....

Going to an Easter Festival with the fam.....that's me in the carrier....I'm working on a poopy explosion in there....hee hee....little does mom know!

Celebrating Easter and looking pretty.....
Hangin' out with Mom and Dad....
And most importantly, getting the low-down on this big new world from my big bro--he's got a two year start on me and says he's going to show me the ropes. Yeah, you tell 'em, brother!

But somehow John seems to want to do (almost) everything I do? Especially keeping me company during tummy time?

So much to blog about, So little time.....

My hands have been full lately. I can't say that I've spent an entire day with both kids alone but I'm working up to it. Usually my mom is here to help me out or John's in school part of the day or Kyle is here on the weekends. I've managed to stave off the full day with both kids but I've definitely handled several hours alone with them and it's a challenge sometimes.

I've learned the art of taking a 7 minute shower with Anna in her carseat, safely perched high on the sink counter while John watches Sesame Street and plays with cars. Our shower is glass so I can observe everyone while I'm showering and I am very prepared to run out of said shower soaking wet if I need to make an "intervention".

I've also learned how to multi task while nursing (something I never imagined doing with John since everytime I nursed him for the first 3 months I was frozen in position bearing my teeth to deal with the pain). I've found I can dig through the freezer and fix John's dinner, read John a book and do his bedtime routine, fill the infant bathtub with water and gather all necessary supplies all with a baby "on board", if ya know what I mean! Sorry if that's TMI but I am darn proud of my multi tasking!

Anna has actually done really well with the sleeping thing. She goes down around 9 PM, wakes up around 3 or 4 and wakes up again around 7 or 8 AM. That is until last night when she decided to hit me with a double whammy and wake up twice in one night....how dare she? I've been spoiled and now, almost 3 weeks later, she's changing it up on me. So, I'm off to bed early tonight....

I have lots of pictures of Easter and other things that I want to share but I'm just too tired to spend any more time on the blog. But stayed tuned....I will post some pictures soon!!!

First Sunday Dress

So I'm back to obsessing over picture taking. Since my original model has long since decided to not cooperate with me, I now have a new little model who will sit perfectly still and let me snap away. You'll remember back when John was little I would take pictures of him for hours and I had a million pictures on my computer. Not so much anymore....well, I still have a million pictures of my fun little boy but many are blurry because he's a man on the move!

Here are some pictures from yesterday's photo shoot. We took Anna to church for the first time and she wore a pretty little dress that I had to document.

Happy 1 Week Birthday, Anna!

We love having you as part of our family. You are the sweetest little girl! And are getting cuter every day. Here is a picture with your Mamaw and Grandpa--the first visit to meet their first girl grandbaby.

Big Brother's Current Obsession: Anna

I woke up this morning and ran into the living room asking Mom and Mimi what they had done with Anna. She wasn't on the couch and she wasn't in the swing. What did those two do with her?? I finally found her in her crib sleeping peacefully.

I really, REALLY wanted to hold her this morning so we sat in our PJs for a photo op. Meet my little sister, Anna Maye! I'm going to always protect my little sister. Isn't she cute?

Here I am giving her a big hug

Don't forget the wrestling-style choke hold

Are we sure she has toes, Mommy? Are you suuuure?