Super Mom Moment

I was about to introduce you to Jackson's #1 best friend...but then I remembered he's already made his big debut on this blog.

Remember THIS post?

Jackson and Tiger have made gigantic strides since that post.

I am happy to report that they are now the best of friends. Tiger goes everywhere with Jackson...and I mean everywhere (story time, nursery, the airplane, you name it). While Jackson has gotten bigger and stronger, Tiger...well, he has seen better days.

Because Tiger is more adventurous than most tigers his age, he was in need of a good washing. He was pretty dirty. Ryan and I decided it would be best if Jackson helped with the bathing process. We had Jackson ceremoniously drop Tiger into the washing machine. We poured the soap in and closed the lid. Jackson thought it was great fun until he realized Tiger was stuck in the washer and was probably drowning. He was so upset. He kept grabbing our hands and leading us to the washing machine insisting we take the poor creature out.

So we did (he wasn't even wet yet!).

Ryan and I then decided to hand wash the poor animal. We washed him in the bathroom sink with Jackson supervising on the countertop. The moment we put Tiger in the sink, the water turned black. Really gross.

The bath was a success even though Jackson had to be separated from his best friend while Tiger dried in the dryer.

Tiger is now whiter than he has been in months, and sometimes I think I see a sparkle or two.

Fast forward to this afternoon. Jackson and I went to Michael's to return something, and I happened to buy Jackson some plastic animal figurines that were on sale for a dollar. He was busy playing with those while I walked to the car. I got Jackson all buckled in and as I was backing out of the parking space, I saw something in my rearview mirror. An orange and black striped something in the middle of the road!

Tiger!

I immediately pulled the car back into the parking spot, got out, and rescued Tiger.

Jackson had no idea that we almost abandoned his best friend. That would have been disastrous. Super Mommy to the rescue!

In other news, today:

• I dropped a frozen chicken on my foot. It hurt really bad. I asked Ryan, "Why did the chicken fall on my foot?" (Kinda like, why did the chicken cross the road). Ryan's response: "Gravity".

• I ate entirely too much chinese food today. Now my tummy hurts.

• Ryan and Jackson were eating a smoothie tonight, and I thought it was really cute. I sneakily recorded some of it, but at the end of the video I accidentally captured a "Happy Feet" moment and had to share. Notice how I am providing free advertisement for whatever is playing in the background.

Reset Button

Today has been one of those days.

You know, couldn't fall asleep 'til 4 am, 7:15 toddler wake up call, forgot my Young Women's lesson at home, spilled boiling hot food in my lap, whiney child kind of day.

Sometimes I wonder what life would be like if I could just hit the reset button and start these kind of days over.

And then I got to thinking...Hey, I may not be able to hit the reset button on my day, but I can hit the reset button on my attitude.

It's amazing how perspective can change the way you feel in an instant.

I was tired, cranky, and ready to call it a day when I realized that despite the difficulties, I am blessed with so much. I am blessed with a healthy child who smiles when I get him from his crib in the morning. I am blessed with a loving husband who will run home and get my lesson for me without a word of complaint. I am blessed with a cupboard full of food when many people are without. I am blessed to be alive.

When I thought about that, a weight of frustration was immediately lifted from my shoulders and gratitude filled my heart.

My day didn't seem so bad anymore.

I mean, how can I be upset when I have this little cutie keeping me company all day!

 

 

And let's not forget this one...first day of school as a 2L. 

 

Jackson and Mommy playing with blanket forts.

A Letter for the Future

Dear Teenage Jackson,

As a toddler, you had many talents. One talent you had was leaving behind a path of destruction everywhere you went. You were like a tornado and should be very proud of your toddler mess-making skills.

However, despite your mess-making skills, you actually, on occasion, thought cleaning was fun (especially when Mom was cleaning)!

I'm not lying!
Are you still breathing?

Some of your favorite chores included: sweeping the floor, dustbusting the carpet, magic erasering random household objects, wiping down surfaces, putting away the dishes, and folding laundry.

You were a pretty good helper (as good as a 21 month old can be anyways).

But wait! There's more, Future Jackson! You would actually just start cleaning out of the blue, without being told to!

For example, in this video, I was lying in bed watching you magic eraser the furniture with no prompting from me whatsoever.



I guess the bedframe wasn't clean enough for your satisfaction. You had to take matters into your own hands.

And another:

Getting your morning clean on while watching Elmo.

Hopefully, I encouraged this behavior.

So Teenage Jackson, some day when you tell me you don't want to clean, I have proof that you not only cleaned without being told to, but you actually LIKED it!

It can't be all that bad, right?

Now go straighten up your room.

Love,
Mom

Celebrate!

Today is a day of celebration!

Today is the last day I have to take 10 pills a day! Hurray! (And if you know me, you know I hate taking pills. Blah.)

I haven't really talked about it much, mainly because I don't want to seem like I'm complaining, but I've had a lot of health problems this year. Ranging from a weird skin virus to back injuries to, most recently, a bacteria in my stomach.

For almost 8 months now I've been having intense pain right under my ribcage and horrible nausea off and on. It started out in bouts happening maybe once or twice a week, usually at night. However, it started to get more and more often and more severe.

In February, I came down with Pityriasis Rosea. It's my fun skin rashes I had all over. I thought maybe my stomach problem was a side effect of this virus, so I kind of brushed it off.

And then in May, I went back to a doctor and was diagnosed with Gastritis and a bladder infection. Again I thought the pain and nausea was due to the infection, but again it didn't go away.

So then I went to a specialist. They had my blood drawn. Never get your blood drawn when you haven't eaten anything in 18 hours. I didn't really think about it, and I wasn't hungry. (Food has been my enemy lately).

I felt bad for the poor lady drawing my blood. I felt fine, but after a little bit I started feeling woozy and seeing spots. I was almost certain I was going to pass out. The tech kept yelling, "Don't pass out on me! You're fine! You're not going to pass out!" And I kept saying, "I'm so sorry, I don't know what's wrong with me. I think I'm going to pass out. I'm going to pass out. I'm so sorry. I'm usually not like this." And then there was a lady waiting in the front office yelling that she had been waiting far too long and wanted to be taken care of immediately.

You should have been there. It was quite a scene.

I asked for some crackers, but they didn't have any. One of the workers went to the break room and came back with some sun chips. I felt pretty guilty eating a random stranger's lunch. It did help me feel better though! I stopped seeing spots and apologized about a zillion times. The nice lady said not to worry that it happened all the time, usually to men. I think she was just trying to make me feel better.

Next time I will make sure to eat breakfast. Lesson learned.

Anyways, one of the things they tested me for was for the H. Pylori bacteria. The test came back inconclusive meaning I am in between normal and not normal. They told me that if I had been taking antacids or acid blockers (which I had been) it may alter the results.

They are pretty sure that's what I had, so instead of taking me off medicine for 2 weeks to test me again, they prescribed me 2 different kinds of antibiotics and another acid reducer. I had to take 10 pills a day for 2 weeks. I am grateful for modern day medicine. Even though it is a pain to take, I'm glad it's going to help me feel better. It does make me feel bad though that there are people who have to take that many or more pills every day for the rest of their lives.

Darn you H. Pylori for camping out in my stomach! I am crossing my fingers that my stomach problems will go away.

But in the meantime, I am celebrating my last day of taking pills! Wahoo!

Yummy yummy breakfast and late night snack.

It's no fun being sick.

Chuck-E-Cheese, Harry Potter, and Other Ramblings

First of all, I would like to say a big happy birthday to Mr. Harry Potter.

 

 

Nerdy? No. Awesome? Yes!

Anyways, moving on...

Did you know that I have this giant checklist on my phone with all the things I want to blog about and not forget. I also have about a million pictures and videos I have been meaning to post, but haven't. I feel like a world class #1 slacker when it comes to blogging. Hopefully in the next couple weeks I'll be able to catch up!!

We took Jackson to Chuck E Cheese for the first time a couple weeks ago. He loved it. He was content playing on the little playground and watching people. We probably didn't need to get any tokens at all.

Here is Jackson dancing to the music.



Jackson was a little nervous to ride on the ride on toys. He rode his first one at the mall. He hated it! He started panicking and begged to get off. Goodbye 50 cents! We tried again at Chuck E Cheese, and he took it a little better.

Proof:



Ryan had fun competing with the other dads at skiball. They take it pretty seriously.

 Jackson was Ryan's ball boy.

 

We saw Chuck-E-Cheese, but Jackson could care less about him.

 

Other news: Jackson loves to push his push toys down the hall. Not so sure if the neighbors love it though...

 

Busted

Jackson knows the cat food is off limits. Unfortunetly, playing with Meow Mix is one of his favorite pastimes. He loves making kitty stew by putting the cat's food into the water. What can I say, he's a natural chef.

 

Whenever I see him sneaking toward the cat food, I always say, "No, no!" I guess I have done it so many times now that when I catch him in the kitty food, he looks at me and says, "No, no!" before I can. Little stinker.

 

One day, I walked around the corner and discovered Jackson trying to clean up the mess he made. He looked at me innocently, pretending like he didn't touch a morsel of food.

 

From the looks of it, he grabbed a kitchen towel, shoved as much kitty food in it as he could, and hid the rest under the tarp. It might've worked if the tarp hadn't of been see through.

Busted.

Also, just for funsies, here is a video of Jackson playing with his new kitten. (Just kidding....He wishes!) This was at the pet store, and no the kitten didn't make it home with us.

Rainy Times

It has been a very rainy summer here in Georgia. I joke with Ryan sometimes and ask him if it feels like home (Washington). He claims to love the rainy weather and cloudy skies. For me, it's hard to go out and do any summer-type activities with Jackson. We tried going to the pool yesterday, and swam for about 15 minutes before we had to go running back inside due to a down pour. Poor Jackson didn't quite understand why we had to end our fun early.

It was really funny because on Friday, construction workers were on the temple roof fixing something and it kept raining off and on all day. It would stay sunny and out of no where, it would start pouring. They would scramble and get everything under this giant blue tarp and hide out for about 10 minutes until the rain stopped. Then they would come out from under their temporary hideout and work as fast as they could before the next downpour.They did this 5 times at least. It probably delayed the completion of their project because they were still up on the roof at 10 pm. I guess if they waited until the rain stopped completely, the roof might not be done until Fall.

About a month ago, Ryan went hometeaching. Jackson wanted to get out and do something, so I took him to Target. I let him play in the toy aisle for awhile and then put him back in the cart to get some stuff we needed. I was almost done when the lights started flickering eerilyand then went off completely. I felt like a hush spread throughout the store as if everyone is holdind their breath. Everything was silent, until a couple seconds later the lights turned back on. Then everyone released the breath they were holding and continued on.

This lady next to me started exclaiming to her friend that they better hurry or they'd get stuck in the bad storm. Storm? It was sunny when I got there...

As I was checking out, the Target employee was asking me if I drove. Puzzled, I said yes. She exclaimed, "Oh good! The storm is so bad out there! Buggies are flying everywhere!" I had no idea what she meant by this and just nodded like I understood what she was talking about.

As I was walking to the exit, a different Target employee stopped me. "You can't leave, we are sending everyone to the freezer section." What? Okay...

I turned around and watched as other people were herded to the land of frozen food, when again I overheard a conversation. Someone was saying that tornadoes were spotted in the area. I glanced out the exit and saw a downpour of rain, lightning, and a pitch black sky that only an hour ago was bright and cheerful.

At this point, Jackson was starting to get restless, so I let him out. He decided he wanted to play with dog food bags. Whatever keeps him happy, right?

After awhile, I looked around and noticed that we were the only ones in the freezer section. Everyone else had left. I asked a worker if it was safe to leave, and they said it was.

I went outside and the sky had a weird yellowish haze. It was still pouring and lightning. I didn't have an umbrella and was a bit afraid of walking all the way to the car. I didn't want to wait around though just in case the storm get worse. I looked at Jackson and asked if he was ready. He just looked at me with his big brown eyes.

I took a deep breath and ran outside. I didn't make it 10 feet when a gigantic lightning bolt hit right in front of me. (It felt like it was right next to me, but it was probably pretty far away). I felt the warmth of it, and it felt like my hairs were standing from the static electricity. I turned right around and ran back inside. Jackson was crying. I called Ryan, who was still hometeaching, and told him I was stuck at Target.

He was having fun, hometeaching with flash lights (the power was out), and telling ghost stories. Just kidding, they were just chatting, but I felt like ghost stories would have been more fitting.

About 45 minutes later, the rain stopped and the lightning could only be seen in the distance. I was still weary, but walked out to the car. Luckily, we were not struck by lightning. As I walked through the parking lot, I understood what the Target worker meant when she said the buggies were flying. It was like a shopping cart graveyard outside. They were every which way and some were even smashed up against cars. My car luckily was unscathed, and I hurried and got us in the car.

On the way home, lights were out, wooden panels from construction projects were scattered on the street, its nails poking upwards, tree branches everywhere, etc.

When we made it home safely, I finally breathed a sigh of relief. Ryan had a little more trouble getting home due to fallen trees in the middle of the roads. He had to take some detours, but got home as well.

I'm glad the storm was pretty fast moving and that we weren't swept away in a tornado. I guess if I had to be stuck anywhere, Target is a pretty good place to be!