Made in Richmond

Well, that last post was, um, heavy. Thanks for all your emails and what nots. You all are as sweet as can be.

And until I post again, I leave you with this picture that basically restores my soul every time I look at it. Look at this boy. Look at all I have. Things are gonna be great.

I was going to write a big, reflective* post about this, but, quite frankly, I’m busy hanging out with my awesome kid. So know this:

Monday was my first day as a (mostly**) Stay-At-Home-Mother. I’m stoked and totally terrified. But it’s going to be awesome, I just know it.

Yeah, he’s pretty excited too.***

*You can read about my official exit here.
**I’ll still be working for our church on Wednesdays mornings and Thursday afternoons. JR will be in daycare on those days — at least until we’re too broke to afford it.
***Yes, he’s holding an iPhone. We removed all the apps off of my old one, and he uses it as a camera. You can check out his photos here.

Last night, Ross, JR, and I were in the car on the way to Ross’s parents house for dinner. After a really rough couple weeks (more on that in a later post, maybe), we were really looking forward to an evening of pizza and chatting with two of our favorite people.

Well.

About 15 minutes into the drive, I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw (oh horror of horrors) the entirety of JR’s afternoon snack coming out of his face.

A few seconds later, I saw part of his lunch come out of his face.

So, we pulled over, attempted to clean him up (which is hard to do when you have no spare clothes and it’s 30 degrees out), and just decided to bag the whole thing and drive home.

With the car smelling like vomit.

He threw up again when we walked in the door, and once more about 30 minutes later.

Thankfully he’s doing fine now — no incidents overnight and he’s even had some toast and applesauce. And now we’ve experience what it’s like when a toddler throws up. It’s highly unpredictable and very hard to contain.

But what this whole thing really showed me was that biology is really weird because after JR threw up in the car, he looked at me and shouted “MAMA I NEED A WIIIIIIIIIIIIIPE!”

And I instantly thought “How is he so CUTE?”

We are what you call “a very blonde people.”

My dad and stepmom took a trip out west last summer. Upon their return, they brought with them a cowboy hat and Yellowstone National Park “sheriff’s” star for JR.

“Perfect!” I thought. “He can be a cowboy for Halloween. Done and done.”

And then I didn’t think about it for four months because, hey! I already had it figured out.

As it got closer to Halloween, we tried to introduce JR to the concept of dressing up as a cowboy. We would casually suggest that he wear the hat. Gently encourage him to belt out a “Yee-haw!” Give him ever-so-delicate guidance to try on a bandanna.

No dice. He wanted NOTHING to do with them.

Our friend Sarah offered up her daughter’s frog costume from a couple years ago. It’s basically a pair of pajamas with a hood that happens to feature eyeballs. I thought surely he would go for it.

Well. When I attempted to get JR to try it on the day before Halloween, he had a total meltdown, complete with flopping himself on the floor, gasping “No!” through tears.

I put on the brakes at that point.

He’s not even two. He won’t remember this at all. He needs to look at Halloween as a fun evening to be spent with his friends and family, not a time that his parents force him to put on weird clothes for their amusement.

So, I found a red T-shirt and painted some black stripes on it, stuck him in a pair of black pants, handed him his blue blanket, and boom! We had a very happy Linus:

Here he is with his friend (and godbrother, if that’s a thing) Jack, who happens to be sporting the lion costume that JR happily wore last year — back before he had opinions on things.

I turned 29 today. I was supposed to sleep in a bit, have a leisurely morning with my husband and little boy, rest while JR took his nap and Ross watched football, and then drop JR off with his grandparents so Ross and I could enjoy an evening out.

Not. So. Much.

Instead, I was ripped from my sleep at 2am by a screaming toddler with a fever. Then I was ripped from my sleep again a few hours later by the same toddler with an even higher fever. So, we spent the morning in the doctor’s office, wandering around Target while we waited for JR’s prescription to be filled (after a quick trip to Krispy Kreme to try and be festive), and heading home to rest. JR’s fever eventually spiked to 104.5 which led to a call to the doctor to find out exactly *when* I should freak out and continuous prayers that we wouldn’t be celebrating my birthday in the ER.

JR cried a pretty much all day and we watched A LOT of Winnie the Pooh, but his fever finally seemed to be under control by around 4pm. After escaping briefly running a quick errand, I came home to find this:

While I’m still bummed that my birthday celebration will have to wait until next week, coming home to this, my two boys sleeping soundly (and competing over who could snore the loudest), it made the destruction of our plans sting a little bit less.

On Wednesday we made the 15-minute drive up to the Bass Pro Shop (it’s this wilderness/fishing store/spectacle with catfish tanks…oh forget it, just trust that toddlers will love it) and then took a stroll around Ashland. For those of you not from Richmond, it’s a smaller town just north of us with a train track running straight through downtown; JR was beside himself.

Here you see JR and Ross sitting on the “fishy bench” outside of the store (after sampling goodies at the Fudge Shop — yeah, that’s right, they have one). Ross told JR to make “a funny face.”

Fifteen years ago this evening, my grandmother passed away. She passed away because someone chose to drive drunk.

Very early tomorrow morning will mark 15 years since I was told she was longer with us. I very clearly remember my dad breaking the news to me. I was 13.

I can’t help but to think that if that person hadn’t made that choice, my grandmother would still be around to get to know JR — to love him, to spoil him, to be responsible for picking out his Easter outfit and to feed him saltines topped with peanut butter and jelly, like she did for me when I was little. I think because he’s so very much here now (he’s made his presence much more known as a toddler than he ever did as an infant) and she’s so very much not, I’m feeling her absence a bit more strongly this year.

I miss you, Big Grandma. Always will.

Tuesday was spent at the Virginia Aviation Museum near the Richmond International Airport — talk about a dream come true for this little man. The only downside? You can’t actually get *in* the planes (well, at least not all of them). Two enthusiastic toddler thumbs up.