one week from today.

Posted on May 6, 2013 by mommyinthemidwest

In one week, we will celebrate Dexter Jay’s 2nd birthday. Hard to believe that two years ago I was just a week away from welcoming our second baby. Our second son. And that we didn’t know if he would be a boy or a girl. The last two years have been jam-packed with all things BOY, for sure. It’s been a fun and interesting two years with lots of changes. I can’t believe it’s already been a year since Dexter’s big 1st birthday party. It’s amazing how much faster time seems to pass once you have kids. It’s easy to see how much can really change and how much a person can grow and develop and learn in a month or a year. Dexter is an amazing, lively, energetic, happy little boy and I wouldn’t change one thing about him.

That’s a lie. I’d make him sleep in a little later instead of always waking up between 5:30 and 6:30am every day. But even with that being said, he’s healthy. He’s unique. He’s his own little person and such a huge part of our family. So how could I even dream about changing that? 2 years already! Ryan has been saying he’s 2 for a couple of months now and I yell at him every time. Let my baby be a baby. I can still say he’s 1…and that sounds like a baby, even if I know he’s not. Something tells me when these kids are 10 & 11, we’ll think they were still babies at 2 & 3.

xo,
~C~

i put down the camera

Posted on May 4, 2013 by mommyinthemidwest

I don’t know what happened. I was rarely seen without my camera in my hand for months – maybe even a couple years. Lately, I don’t know what it is. I just haven’t wanted to lug it around. And when I do, like the other night when I took it to a new park, I snap a couple of pics and then put it in the diaper bag. This sucks.

Canon Rebel T2i {source}

I definitely WANT to keep taking pictures but I’m not sure when my passion fizzled. Maybe it’s partly because the kids are so hard to photograph lately. They never stop moving, sure don’t want to pose, and in no way think that their mama taking their picture 500 times is a priority. Also, my hands are full of kids or I’m literally chasing after kids, which makes it hard to carry a camera.

So then I hate blogging all the time with no pictures to share. So then I don’t blog as much, which I hate. I guess maybe going to the gym and/or running outside after the boys go to bed has also cut into my “me” time. Time that I would have spent uploading and editing and blogging. Can’t have it all, can we?

Quite a conundrum. I know. If this isn’t a first world problem, I don’t know what is.

xo,
~C~

Easter 2013

Posted on April 2, 2013 by mommyinthemidwest

To see how much they’ve changed in a year, click: Easter 2012

This Easter weekend we stayed with Ryan’s parents, AKA Pop Pop & Nana. Aunt Chelle, Uncle Bob, and cousin Spencer were able to join us for the weekend. There was an unexpected twist on Easter, but overall, it was a great weekend.

Saturday, their neighborhood had an Easter egg hunt.

A rare photo of me & my boys.

Apparently this is their Swing Face.

Saturday night we celebrated Pop Pop and Uncle Bob’s birthdays with the delicious and adorable cake below.

Theo REALLY wanted to blow out the candles. So we re-lit some.

Sunday morning, Dexter and I were playing on the floor. He was laying/rolling/jumping all over me. It’s kind of a blur now, but I recall that he started to roll off of me and instinctively, I grabbed his arm. It must have been the angle at which he was falling + the angle at which I pulled his arm…but I heard and felt a pop. I sat up immediately and stood him up in front of me. He instantly started screaming and crying in a way that said something was very wrong. We took his shirt off and his right shoulder was visibly different from his left. It looked higher. I picked up his right hand and dropped it. It fell limp at his side. He was not able to use his right arm at all. Ryan and I loaded him up in the car and left for Urgent Care.

in the car

waiting on x-ray results

The boy went from being uncomfortable to being in excruciating pain from moment to moment. His arm remained limp throughout this time. After the first set of x-rays came back normal, the radiologist requested a second set from a different angle. This time the tech raised his arm, which was the first time it had been in that position since his arm popped. He screamed and cried. I noticed, though, that as soon as I picked him up off the table this time, he immediately wrapped his right arm around my neck. I pointed it out to Ryan and the x-ray tech and we went back to the room to wait for results once more. When we sat in the chair, Dexter sat up in my lap. Until then, he had been lying on us. He was hesitant when I asked him to give me a high 5, but did it. He cried a little. He was fidgety. We asked if he wanted to get down and walk around and he did so we put his shoes on and sat him down. He began swinging his arm normally and walked right over to the doctor’s stool and started drumming on it. !!! What!?

This almost brought tears to my eyes; I was so relieved that my babe was fine. Ryan was mortified because we had wasted all this time (and money, no doubt) and there was absolutely nothing wrong with our kid. My perspective … we could have been in surgery for a dislocated shoulder. I don’t know what happened, but when he had that second x-ray, he got all better. We told the nice ladies at Urgent Care “check, please!” and hit the road.