Reasons to smile

I'm going to try to reflect more on things that bring me joy. Here are a few things today that caused me to smile:

This fresh cut bouquet of flowers from my very own yard.

The swing channel on Pandora. I mean, really it melts any icky thought away.

Watching Irene and Ezra play like I used to at a park.

Amazing

The plants in our garden have been climbing the fence.

I'm amazed by how this works. I know I've seen this before but it's one of those things that if you take more than a second to pay attention to, it sorta blows your mind.

We Made It

Words can't express the love we've felt this past year.

We threw a party to celebrate us all making it. Here were just a few slivers of that great afternoon.

One

We were really excited to celebrate Tob's first year. We threw a big bash including a lot of the people that kept us sane this past year...photos on that to come.

Since we knew that party would be a little wild, Irene and Ez wanted to have a small cake party with just our family. They demanded that it be a monkey party and that I make a banana cake.

So, I got my friend Karyn's awesome banana cake recipe and made it from scratch.

We lit the candle, sang, and presented him with a luscious piece with lots of extra cream cheese frosting.

His response was sheer disgust and horror. Case in point that first birthdays are really all about the parents.

Weaning

I have officially weaned Tobias.

This is very bittersweet for me. I know that many people struggle to even make breastfeeding work, so I feel very blessed that we were able to do it. For Tobias and I, it was sometimes all we had. When he hurt, it gave him comfort, and ultimately gave me comfort. There were many times that I felt helpless and nursing him was one way that I felt I could love him.

I think a huge part of me kept going because I feared that he needed it more than other kids...that I could increase his odds if I could pump him full of enough immunity. I realize that thinking was a little whacked out but us moms are good at being ridiculous.

For awhile Tobias's stomach was very sensitive and doctors had me eliminate all dairy and soy, and on top of that any kind of slight spiciness bothered him too. I basically sacrificed all things that tasted good to me so that Tobias could get what I thought he needed.

I complained a lot about it. And in the past few months I grew to understand that it wasn't forever and that this was my last baby to breastfeed. It's hard to appreciate things in the moment, but in the past few months I really tried to soak it all in.

Lately, I feel like God has been telling me lots of stuff about treating Tobias like a real boy. And although I think I could have nursed him much longer, it was time to treat him normally.

He's been doing really well with the transition. He never would take a bottle but went straight to a cup and looks very grown up doing it. I'm the one that aches a bit.

He'll grow up to be a big guy that will probably be grossed out by the thought of his mother breastfeeding him. And he'll never really understand what his mom went through to give him what she felt he needed. That's what being a mom is about I suppose, doing stuff your kids will never understand or even know about.

It wasn't all sacrifice though. There were pure moments of joy when we'd snuggle into the corner of the couch, him quietly suckling while I watched One Life to Live. Or watching his eyes shut and fall gently asleep against my chest.

Kids don't give you much time to get sappy. Just as you're wiping a tear off your cheek, you realize that they're sticking a finger in an outlet.

Fireflies

It's hard to deny a kid's request to get out of bed and catch fireflies.

(Ben gets the photo credit)

Father's Day

Ben will lose it when he sees that I posted this photo.

This weekend was wild and wooly. Friday was our tenth anniversary, which we celebrated simply but sweetly at our favorite restaurant, Riverside Korean.

Sunday was both Father's Day and Tobias's first birthday.

Sunday morning we carved out all for Ben. His first gift was that he got to sleep an extra hour and a half. That's a 7:30 am wake up at our house and until you have kids that wake at 5 am, you just wont understand.

I corralled the kids in the kitchen for as long as they could stand it. Finally, we burst the door down and all climbed on top of the bed. The first photo here is how lovely Ben looks when we all ambush him.

Irene's totally into the breakfast in bed thing. She helped make him a big breakfast burrito and cinnamon rolls. We let him slug around in the bed for as long as we could stand it and then all headed to Winton Woods to do the paddle boats.

You get ideas about what would be the perfect time. What's great is that this photo of the boat makes everything look like something that should be titled 'Father's Day'. But in reality, the kids all got really hot and sweaty and cried about the fact that we didn't pack them drinks. I kept asking them if they had fun and they'd just scowl at me because I didn't have drinks. Thankfully, Ben showed his awesome dad skills and suggested that we all go to Panera, where we all recovered and started smiling again....that was until Tobias pooped his pants and forced us to leave because heads started turning.

What's all this rambling about? I guess in the end, being a great dad means rolling with the punches. I mean, Ben has done some incredible things...you've seen the garden. But what makes a great dad is how you handle the moments like the paddleboats, the unending questions, the middle of the night cries, picking up prescriptions at Walgreens, wiping butts, sweeping the floor for the third time, I mean I could keep going all night. Parenting books, movies, or photos of Brad Pitt and his children, will never prepare you for the everyday stuff that grinds you down and eats at your brain. Through it all, Ben sticks with the program, wakes up the next day ready to go to battle again. I get how hard this stuff is and watch him take the beating and still smile and love us even more.

Bad Parenting

Nuff said.