john's mom works

brothers. ain't it great? i will write this blog or some variation probably a thousand times in the next few years -- or 18 years, or 50 years, or maybe however many years i live to watch my children grow. this afternoon, my husband put john down for his nap while i was in the other room. i came back to the living room and he was already in bed, presumably asleep. and this is awesome, right? he's learning to do that without his mommy having to be there, he's not fussing when daddy is the only parent there to help, and he's listening and doing what he is told. he's going down for a nap peacefully and without stalling and arguing, and he's doing it without me there . that is a parenting win for us for sure. but ... but. it made me cry. john didn't even come to say goodnight to me. he didn't want to hug me before his rest, or tell me sweet dreams and he loves me. he didn't need  me. i cried. i told my husband how bittersweet this was for...

thank god for a daddy who helps so much with the airplane and the infant. couldn't do it without you, babe. the very title of my blog (not this entry but the blog itself) says so much: johnsmomworks. i have always been a working mom. this (temporary*) stay-at-home mom phase of my life has been a new adventure for me -- and for john, of course. with the addition of charlie to the picture, we're flying by the seat of our pants and figuring things out as we go. i split my time between chasing an airplane around the house to assist with in-air refueling (john) and sitting oh-so-still on the couch using my own body to refuel the airplane's little brother. this combination of activities has me simultaneously more excited about mommying than ever ... and more uncertain about mommying than ever. am i doing john a disservice by not having more structured learning time? is he bored and in need of more activity? is charlie getting enough milk to grow big and strong? am i eatin...

'how much noise can i make with this here bell?' 'i may look cute and innocent. but you'll pry my pumpkin from my cold dead hands.' my heart in two bodies. i'm taking advantage of a double nap here - two boys snoozing in an otherwise quiet house equals some unfamiliar quiet time for this mommy. i probably ought to nap myself, right? but these pics ... these pics inspire me and i just had to write. (and a quick credit to our neighbor and friend - who i will only identify as m.l. because she hasn't agreed to let me write about her or her beautiful daughter b. - for taking these beautiful pics of my boys!) we had a great trick-or-treat night last night with m.l.'s family. b., who was dressed as cinderella, is only about six months older than john, so they enjoy playing together and had fun getting candy last night. we stopped by the firestation to visit our favorite firemen uncles and got some awesome pics of my little fireman w...

the station 8 b shift guys who helped me deliver charlie for 12 days now - do the math, that's as long as charlie has existed on this planet! - i've been meaning to bake cookies and bring them over to the fire station for the guys who came and got me and helped me delivery charlie. there's this weird fog, though, around the first two weeks or so after having a baby, and since that's just finally clearing, grammie and john and charlie and i headed over there to mckinney fire department station eight this afternoon. i knew it would be cool to see these guys again, but it was even cooler than i expected. they were SO amazingly indulgent of john, giving him the tour of the station and letting him see, touch, ring bells, check out flashing lights, and generally explore the whole engine and ambulance. they each took turns holding charlie, and they were so genuinely excited to have been a part of that crazy day for our family.  it is really very cool to know that ou...

so first of all, i am typing this on my iphone at the hospital at 549 am, so please forgive the inevitable errors! next, the most relevant facts: as john would say, the real charlie is here! born at 324 pm on thursday, october 10, weighing 7 lbs 7 oz and 19.5 inches long, charles robert made quite an entrance. he waa born on the same day of the pregnancy that his big brother was - 38 weeks 2 days. i delivered him fully naturally without any pain meeications. and yes, he was born in the back of a racing ambulance!  here's the whole story - and this birth story is relatively free of medical detail so even the squeamish among you should be ok! i woke up at my normal midnight, one am, and two am pee times wednesday night, but when i woke at three something was different. i just couldn't get comfortable and back to sleep. by 5 am i could identify actual contractions. i called melissa, my doula, and we decided that since contractions were irregular and not too intense,...

my little super hero eating his favorite meal as i write this, i am listening to the sounds of train-table pieces banging together in john's room. i'm sure he is creating quite a fantastical disastermess for us to clean together later (again) but i hear happy vroom vroom noises and giggles so how can i argue? we'll pick up later. as i write this, my husband is back in baton rouge packing the last of our furniture into a big yellow truck so he can bring it to our new home. no, the house in baton rouge hasn't sold yet -- so if you know someone who is interested please let me know, it's a wonderful house that i can't wait to get rid of! but given that i'm 36 weeks 4 days pregnant, this was the last weekend that we felt comfortable with me being home without my husband, just in case! as i write this, i am considering how 11 days from right now will be the time that john chose to arrive when i was pregnant with him. and of course, who knows if charl...

appropos of nothing, here is a pirate. because he's cute, that's why. if you are facebook friends with my husband, you've probably heard the news: our little family is relocating to dallas next month. actually, my husband will be leaving a little sooner, to start his new job, while john and i pack up the house to get ready to move. i have never felt so very ambivalent about anything in my life. i am so excited for the opportunity -- my husband will be working at a job he's really excited about, in a field he really loves. dallas is a big city, so there will be opportunities for me as well -- tho i will likely not job hunt til after the baby arrives in october. because let's be serious: would YOU hire a six-months-pregnant lady? i am excited about the quality of public schools in the area we will be in. i am excited for the overall well-being of our family, because we certainly wouldn't choose to move if it weren't going to be an overall boon for ...

these looked so much better in my mind. dear peanut, it's 21 minutes into your third birthday, and i'm awake. i just finished making cupcakes for your class tomorrow. they're not as beautiful as i thought they might be but know i iced them all with extra love to make up for their imperfections. three years ago right now i wasn't sleeping either. i was up walking around the house, and i couldn't get comfortable. i had a feeling -- and i would prove to be right -- that you were letting me know that you were ready. you were ready to come into your daddy and my life: to change everything we knew, including ourselves and each other. as i was icing those cupcakes tonight, your baby brother was kicking around inside my belly. and i remember when you were kicking around in there, and we were just waiting to meet you. we loved you already, you see, but we had to meet you to understand how very much. now i can't wait for you to meet your baby brother with ...

oh, those socks ... yesterday morning, john put on his socks and promptly pulled them up almost to his knees. "silly boo," i said, "put your socks down!" "no, mommy, i want them up!" he said emphatically. so up they stayed. *   *   * in the kitchen, i talked to my husband. "he's too young for his friends to make fun of him for his socks, right?" i asked. "yeah," my husband replied, "i think he's got a year or two." i just nodded. *   *   * when i dropped john off at the school, i said to his teacher, "please forgive john's socks ... i know they look ridiculous but he insisted!" she laughed and said, "actually, that's how they wear them these days." dismayed, i walked out to my car. apparently john was more in touch with fashionable socks than i was. for the first time, my three-year-old was officially cooler than me. *   *   * there...

a day that started out as silly hair day got  somewhat more interesting after school. today was silly hair day at school. because he is a rock star, john wore a mohawk - and wore it well, i might add. the view after school, was a little different. here is the story of how john met some firemen. when we ran out of school this afternoon, john climbed into his seat. he insisted on helping buckle himself, as usual, but it still took both my hands to get him strapped in and cinched down. realizing i had neglected to get the list of names of kids in his class, i told john, "i am going to run back inside real quick, i will be right back!" he said, "ok!" so i closed the door. and realized i left my key on the seat next to him when i buckled him up. i tried to open the door. it was locked. another parent was there with me, and i turned to her and said, "who do i call for something like this? the sherriff's office maybe?" as i ran ...

i forgot to mention last week that i published another article on yahoo. this one's actually about john, so you might enjoy reading it. bad mommy: how my 3 year old became an ipad junkie.

my little benefactor counts his dollars. from time to time, when john gets a case of the "i wants" -- you know the drill, "i want to go outside. but i WANT to. i WANT to go outside." -- i have a stock answer for him. i will say, in my most empathetic voice, "my love, mommy wants a million dollars but we can't always get what we want. i'm sorry." this morning's case of i wants wasn't too bad, and it passed with barely a blip in my brain. within moments it was in the past and soon forgotten. or so i thought. when john woke up from his nap, he was in a particularly cuddly mood. nana and jean jean and daddy were all at the store (nana and jean jean drove down from tennessee to visit this weekend) so it was just me and the bug, and we snuggled in his chair for some time. then his eyes lit up. he looked at me with big bright serious baby blues and said, "mommy, you want a million dollars?" i said, smiling, "w...

chocolate face? check. good music? check. sleeeeeeep eyes? check. today was one of those days that just felt like summer vacation. it could be because it was over 90 degrees for probably the first time this year.  but i prefer to think it is because of what an awesome family hanging-out day we had. we were up pretty early, but it was a snuggling kind of morning (my favorite kind) and my husband made us a delicious breakfast. eventually, we made it out to a local produce market that was having a "louisiana food festival" and tasted all sorts of delicious goodies (including the fudge that is smeared all over john's face in the picture above). there was a band playing great music, and john and i just sat and enjoyed it while my husband made our produce purchases. it was hot as blazes, so we stopped for a snowball on the way out. it was john's first-ever snowball, which is no major surprise, but somehow my husband had never had one either. (i know,...

just chillin' on the trike. i wouldn't be a self-respecting mother if i didn't do a little blog entry about mother's day weekend, right? that's what the latest polling shows! so here it is, the requisite mother's day blog. one of the coolest parts of the weekend was that it started so early - and that that's going to be the new normal for me at my new job. leaving the office at 11am on a friday felt like cheating. i felt like i was playing hooky all afternoon. i think i'll get used to the feeling pretty quick, but in the meantime, it's a little odd!  but my husband and i took advantage of the time since he's off by noon on fridays too. we went out for a celebratory new-job lunch and then we took naps. it was wonderful. then we went and got john, who wanted to ride his tricycle in the driveway - or more accurately, to sit on his tricycle in the driveway and talk to mommy and daddy, but that was fun too. after some hard playing ...

i'm a monster, coming to get you, mommy! we're adjusting to a whole new routine at our house -- or, if i'm honest, we're figuring out what the new routine is and then how we're going to adjust it. my new job requires me to start my day at 7am. that means i have to be up at 5 to have time to get ready, eat breakfast, get john up at 6, and drop him at the daycare at 6:30am when they open. (on the plus side, on fridays i am done with work at 11. so i am currently sitting on my couch listening to birds tweet and considering a nap. so the tradeoff is a good one, i think!) what that means for our family, though, is some major adjustments. john will be waking up a full hour earlier than normal. (tho he does often wake up earlier anyway, so hopefully he will be ok!) it might actually be harder for me - i'm truly not a natural morning person, and will probably have to start going to bed earlier to have any hope of being a functioning human being at 5am. th...

how did my first baby get to be this big? you might have seen our "announcement" earlier -- that this baby i'm baking right now is another little boy! we've actually known for a little while. when we got the blood tests back that told us about the blood type, the dna also said it was a boy. but we sort of just wanted a visual confirmation before we made it public ... and this morning, we got that confirmation at the specialist's office. a boy! a little brother for john. two boy puppies chasing us around the house in not to many years. i'll be outnumbered, for sure. even our dog is a boy. but you know what? i couldn't be happier. a house full of boys just makes my day. (not to mention the relief i know my husband feels -- he was sweating the possibility of a daughter to protect!) so my mom-in-law will have two pair: two sweet little girls from my husband's brother and his wife, and two dirty stinky boys from our family. and we'll have ...

seriously? every time i look at this picture i start giggling all over again. that hat! his pose! he looks like he's SINGING! sometimes just when i feel like i am stuck in a rut, suddenly there's ACTION. i've been officially unemployed for a month tomorrow. and if you've ever been unemployed and job searching, you know it's a pretty craptastic process. you send out a million resumes, hear back on maybe three, two of which tell you "we've already found a more qualified candidate," repeat ad nauseum. i've been exceptionally blessed to find that i know some amazing people willing to go to bat for me, so i have that going for me. but as the days poured into weeks, the initial onrush of possibilities slows down and ...  you ... wait ... and wait ... and then. last week i had a couple of interviews. i have a second interview for one position tomorrow. i have an interview with another company monday. slowly but surely, this process is worki...

captain undies insists on wearing not one but two pairs on his head. last night when we were heading towards bedtime for john, he suddenly became enamored with what had just come on the tv -- dancing with the stars. he immediately wanted to dance with daddy, asking, "where's my tutu, daddy? i need my tutu!" daddy convinced him no tutu was necessary, and they danced around the living room to the end of the current song. then i got a little spin around the room with my favorite little dancer, too. maybe the kiddo is psychic, because today we got some news worth dancing about! a little over a week ago, the maternal fetal specialist sent my blood off to a lab in wisconsin to do a test that is uncommon enough here in the u.s. that only one or two labs do it -- in fact, the hospital didn't even have the protocol for sending a sample to this lab, so they had to research it to figure out what to do, and i went back a couple days later to have the blood drawn. t...

sleeping peacefully despite the MASSIVE quantity of animals in his crib. and the santa pjs. shush, they still fit. reasons i might be crazy: #1 i love to take pictures of john when he's sleeping. don't get me wrong - i don't interrupt him in the night to creepily snap stalker pics of my sleeping love. but if he's sleeping late in the morning, and it's about time for him to wake up anyway, i might just surreptitiously mamarazzi my way into his room for a little peek. he's so peaceful and sweet and still, i just can't stand it. reasons i might be crazy: #2 since i've been unemployed, i've been seeking out all sorts of ways to save money. one of the obvious places to look was at my cosmetics -- if you've known me a while, you know i use an awesome botanically based product line that's amazing for my skin and that i love ... but like most things, you pay for that quality. "so, self," i thought to myself, "maybe there are...

ingenuity: fitting two crackers perfectly between the tines of your for so you can eat them at the same time. john has recently started singing songs with us, instead of just by himself or wanting us to sing them. i think the first one was the til-then-obnoxious "i love you" song from barney. i've always hated that song. but somehow, delivered in a sweet little sincere boy voice, it suddenly is pretty freaking great. we progressed to the alphabet song, which john can now sing just about perfectly. he sometimes skips t-u-v, but he mostly sings it along with us beautifully. same with twinkle twinkle little star (tho in john's rendition, it's twinkle little little star). but just the other night, something happened that was pretty amazing for me. john requested, and then started singing along with, one of the lullabies i wrote for him. it shouldn't surprise me that he has learned these songs, since i've sung then to him almost every single nigh...

mommy, i have an idea! john ... john is a talker. it's pretty much a running dialogue everywhere we go. he's got something to say, or ask, or point out, about everything. it's actually pretty awesome, and as his vocabulary gets bigger and bigger, he gives us some pretty awesome insights sometimes. and sometimes less so. the last time we took john grocery shopping, it was a looooong trip. we bough a ton of stuff, we went all over the store, we doubled back, and he had to be good for SO long. he was a trooper, only a little bit of fussing, and we made it through almost entirely unscathed. then we were in line at the check out, waiting for the two people ahead of us to get finished so it would be our turn. very enthusiastically (read: not quietly), john exclaims, "mommy, i have an idea!" somewhat exhausted, and hoping for a fascinating commentary from the not-quite-three point of view, i asked,"what's your idea, john?" he lit ...

while we're at it, how 'bout a little baby #2 update? we saw the maternal fetal specialist on thursday of last week. first we visited with the ultrasound tech, and it was actually way cool - they had brand new fancy ultrasound equipment, so the company's reps were still there showing them how it all worked ... soooooo we got a million pictures of this little babe. i was at 12 weeks 2 days when they did the ultrasounds, so i didn't expect to see much - but with the new equipment, which is apparently pretty high fallutin', we could see all four chambers of the heart beating, we could see the sections of the brain, we could see the bones in the hand and the long bones of the legs and arms. we counted two hands, two feet, and two kidneys, among other cool stuff. (no gender yet, be patient!) (i am interrupting this baby report to tell a very awesome story: john just came to get me, brought me back to the big boy room - which is still not his room yet - and said, ...

one cool cat in his daddy's sunglasses today, i thought i'd give you a glimpse at what school mornings look like for john. we're going to do this in a series of pictures. right off the bat, though, i am going to cheat: that picture above is actually from on the way to a class at church, not technically school ... but the sun was bright, and he asked if he could wear daddy's sunglasses. and then he just looked too ridiculously adorable for me to not snap a pic. so there's john, SORT of on the way to school, looking like the coolest cat you've ever met. nothing like a little doc seuss to ease the morning commute one day last week, john woke up, took a shower with me (a prospect that used to terrify him but he did great!), and then spent the rest of the morning while i got ready not watching his iguy (or fussing to watch his iguy), not playing with his train table or other toys, but reading books in his room. it was so quiet i went to check on him right be...

i love a kid who, before his third birthday, recognizes that fridays are cause for dancing. this morning we put one of john's "toddler tunes" cds on and he was listening in the living room, but he got tired of it and brought me another cd - the "anxious dog music" cd we tried for buddy back at the height of his craziness. "mommy, i want to listen to DOG music!" said my gleeful little bug. so i put it in the cd player, and the twinkly "calming" piano started. and john said, "i want to dance, but i need my red tutu!" you know i am not a mom built to deny a boy his tutu. so pjs and tutu and all, we danced around the living room for a while. we did spins, and leaps, and bows. after a little while, i looked at the clock. "mama's gotta go get ready, my love," i said reluctantly. "we have to get you to school." he looked at me innocently and said, "i wear my tutu to school?" i talked him o...

chipper little fellow. when i got john out of bed this morning, i asked him if he would hold me for a minute. he said, "but i awake, mommy!" i said, "yes, baby, but mommy just wants to sit in this chair and snuggle for a sec, even though we're awake, is that ok?" and he snuggled up on me and said he loved me. and i knew, right then and there, that thursday would be a better day. and better it was. first of all, john was in a reasonably good mood in the morning, which is not a given with our not-a-morning-person family. he was a little grumpy to daddy but they made up before daddy had to head to work. then our ride to school was full of singing songs and talking about what he would do that day (intermixed with requests that ms. meka give him a poptart when he arrives at school). he plonked down for his breakfast with a smile and a goodbye kiss and mama was off to the doctor. i was oddly nervous going to the doctor - there was no reason to believe a...