Oh what do you do in the summertime . . .

Because every little kid needs a white trash summer picture of themselves wearing nothing but a diaper.

Things are heating up here in Tennessee. After so kindly helping me water the plants, James was soaked and covered head to toe in mud, so I finally took off his clothes and let him run around in the sprinkler. I think that'll be a regular summertime activity from here on out.

Average James

(Here's Jamers trying to eat with a spatula. He likes to be creative.)

Wherever we go, people always comment on James . . . how cute he is (obviously), how funny he is (he's hilarious), the things he says (totally random), etc., and without fail when they ask how old he is and I tell them they always look surprised and say something along the lines of "Wow! He's so big!" or "He must have a tall dad" or "You're a big boy, aren't you?"

I've always hated it.

I mean, sure, he's no runt, but he's not Andre the Giant either!

Well, after James' official 18-month doctor's check-up I am now happy that I can respond to people "No, he's not big. He's just average." Thankyouverymuch.

He's 32 1/2 inches tall and 25 lbs. Height is 50th percentile and weight is 25th percentile.

I'm convinced other people's kids are just small or perhaps they forgot how big an 18-month-old kid is supposed to be?

Jameisms

James is finally 18 months old. I feel like he's been this old for awhile now, but he finally hit the mark yesterday.

Here are some of my favorite things he says and does:

The kid loves lawn mowers. LOVES them. He calls them "lawn mows" and gets really excited when he sees or hears one. I have a feeling he won't like these so much when he's older and we make him use a real one.

Whenever he gets out of the tub or gets undressed he yells "I'm naked!" No idea where he learned that.

"Honk!" to noses. An older couple in our ward took a liking to James when we first moved here. To make him laugh at church, whenever he would touch their noses they would blurt out "Honk!" Ever since, James says that when he touches our noses.

"Come heeeeere" to animals, stuffed animals, etc., which actually sounds more like "Comemeeeeer!" in a really concerned, sweet voice. It cracks me up every time. After he started saying it, I realized I must say it to him a lot during the day, like when he gets hurt (which happens a lot).

"Fumble!" He'll pick up a football and run around spiking it and yelling "fumble!"

Lately when I pick him up from a nap he'll lay his head on my shoulder and I'll rub his back. So then he'll start rubbing mine, too. It's so sweet.

He's really into kissing "owies" lately. This week he started pointing to the freckles on my arms and saying "Owie? Kiss?" and then bending over and kissing them.

He's really proud of himself when he does something he knows is hard and he'll always complete it with clapping for himself and pronouncing "Good job!" (like figuring out the right key to put in the car's ignition. Uh-oh!)

Somehow he has remarkable language skills. He even usually gets his pronouns right (like "I" and "me" and "you"--he uses them appropriately almost always.). It amazes me. Brian and I have nicknames for his binkie and blanket, which we usually call "bink" or "blank." Despite what we call them, James still names them correctly (unfortunately, he's still very much addicted to his dang binkies. I keep telling myself "this is the week" we'll get rid of them and then I chicken out).

His run. Oh, his run. He kicks his little legs to the side as he runs, so it's kind of like a waddle run. I love it. If I could figure out how to post video to blogger I would post a video of it.

He knows the names and sounds of about 20 different animals. His favorite varies each week. This week he likes horses.

I've been trying to teach him the alphabet, numbers, etc. He has counted to five before, but most of the time he just randomly recites numbers. The alphabet has been trickier. So far he only really knows the letter "T."

Just last week he interrupted me in the middle of reading him a story, grabbed the book, shut it and started over reading it again himself. I guess I wasn't reading it to his liking. He didn't do half bad either. I was impressed.

He can complete our sentences. Example, If we say "What the . . . " he'll blurt out "Heck!" if I say "Oh my . . ." he'll finish with "gosh!"

Around tax season we received a random magnet in the mail with the photo and name of a local CPA named "Loren Krowkowski." James knows his name. Whenever we walk by he'll point and say "Krowkowski?" So random.

He still doesn't have a ton of hair, although it is finally filling in somewhat. He's also still behind in the teething department, which stinks since right now he's going through what most 6 month old babies go through. Thus, he's not sleeping well at all.

Also, last week he came down with a nasty case of the croup. We should have taken him in much earlier but finally decided Sunday night that we were worried about his breathing. So we took him into the ER and they treated him, declared it croup, and sent us home. We had to force some nasty steroids down his throat to alleviate the swollen vocal cords and James was not having it. He gritted his teeth and fought with every muscle he had. It was that moment that I discovered that he definitely inherited my stubbornness. After he thought he had won he yelled "All done! Let's go!" and pointed to the door. I felt so bad for him but even the nurses had a good laugh over that one.

Needless to say, we've had a very tiring few weeks.

Even so, I adore my little boy. I don't know what we ever did without him. I'm relieved it's finally time for nursery but I'll also miss my little church buddy.

Late Night Thoughts

So everyone I know (okay, only dental school people) is posting about how it has been a year since graduation, a year since they moved away from Virginia, how much their life has changed, etc., so I thought I would, too.

Actually, I tried to go to bed early tonight since I'm exhausted because Jamers has had a rough night of sleep the last couple weeks (combine croup, getting new teeth, and possible fears of who knows what), which means I have, too. But still, I ended up laying in bed tossing and turning and not being able to sleep.

And then I started thinking about Virginia and how it seems forever ago that we ever lived there, and yet somehow I'll be driving down Kingston Pike in Knoxville and temporarily think I'm driving down Broad Street in Richmond (the two are remarkably similar) and not be able to find what I'm looking for and then reality hits and I remember "Uhh, Brittany, you're in Tennessee."

Duh.

And then for a brief second, it'll be a shock to my system that I'm not in Virginia anymore, because honestly, part of my heart is still there (although not necessarily in Richmond).

Well, unlike some of our friends, our lives haven't changed drastically since we moved. I mean, we live in a new place, so it's changed in that regard. But the one thing that has changed is James. In fact, he has changed a ton in the last year. A TON. He walks and talks (he repeats everything we say. Everything . . . even the bad things. Not that we say bad things, of course. And he's starting to count, which is hilarious) and he is even getting sassy with me.

Case in point:

Me: "James, do you want to go have lunch?"

James: "No!"

Me: "I really think it's lunchtime, so let's go get something to eat."

James: "I said NO!" (complete with a glare)

Seriously? Is he old enough to be that sassy?

So although I don't have any totally recent pictures to post, I did find a couple of pictures from Andrea's first visit after we moved here just to prove how much our little sassy pants has grown. Check out how little (and how big--holy thunder thighs!) he was. I miss his pre-sassy days, but am loving that he can finally tell me how he really feels, even if it's a big fat no.

Pet Peeves, Con't

My top 5 pet peeves for this week . . .

1. Taking the time to email someone and then getting absolutely no response--especially if you asked specific questions you needed answers to. This is irritating to me for so many reasons. First of all, hitting "reply" and typing out a simple response takes all of 10 seconds, if that, and almost zero amount of energy. Something as simple as "Got your email. Thanks" or "Thanks for the email. We'll talk later!" I mean seriously, it's not hard, people!

*(Emailing is second nature to me. I realize not everyone is as into it as I am, but still...)

2. People who don't put the toilet seat cover down after using the toilet. There is a cover for a reason and there is no excuse for not putting it down after you are done.

3. Bad customer service. I was in Walgreens the other day and was looking for a specific product. I found one of what I needed but was hoping to get at least two more. I found a salesgirl and said "Excuse me, do you have any more of these?" and held up the item in question.

She took one look at it and scowled "No" and went right back to what she was doing.

Since her response was abnormally brief and somewhat rude I stood there for a second waiting for her to continue. Because usually the polite/normal response would have been something like "No, that's all we've got. I'm sorry. We should get in more next week" or at the very least, "No, we don't. Sorry!" When I realized she had nothing more to add, I walked away laughing.

The ironic thing was that as I was checking out I realized she was the manager of the store. Seriously? How does someone with that kind of social/customer service skills get a managerial position?

Oddly enough, I've realized that most women bosses I've had over the last few years have very questionable managerial skills. I won't elaborate further on what my conclusions are to that observation.

4. I'm no fashion queen, but wearing tennis shoes with dresses or dress pants is just wrong. And I'm not talking about a cute pair of keds with a casual dress. I'm talking all out running shoes with a church dress or a suit. I'm not sure how anyone could ever think this is okay and yet I've seen it countless times since living in Tennessee.

5. Bloggers who don't punctuate correctly or at all. especially when they don't capitalize proper nouns or the first letter in each sentence. is hitting the shift key that hard? that kind of punctuation wouldn't pass in school so why do they think it's acceptable in the blog world? honestly, it's so irritating to me that i cringe when i see it.

Any one out there have any more they'd like to add?

Oklahoma!

James and I paid a little visit to Oklahoma over Mother's Day weekend.

Wow. What a state. Definitely not a place I'd want to live the rest of my life, but charming in its own way regardless.

Before I get into our trip though, here's a little side note on Jamers these days:

Still very little hair on this child's head and his six month molars are just barely coming in (only a year late).

It's okay. I still love him.

He is increasingly hilarious. Every time he gets out of the bathtub he'll say "I'm naked, I'm naked!" I'm still not entirely sure how he learned that one. As mentioned in a previous post, I love the evolution of his language. One of the first things he was good at saying was "Uh-oh" which turned into "Oh no!" which is now "Oh gosh!" Everything is "Oh gosh" these days. Oh, and after months of saying "please" he finally learned "Thank you" and now says it every time he hands me something. I just love this kid!

Okay, back to Oklahoma.

It was home to one of the very best Mexican restaurants I've been to in years. Good Mexican food is important to me. Obviously. Even Jamers finished off an entire bowl of salsa (with a spoon, not chips) all on his own. I couldn't keep him away from the stuff. I could sure go for some of that goodness right now.

Aside from spending quality time with Amy and surprising my parents (who decided to visit Amy that weekend as well), the highlight of the trip for me was definitely visiting the Oklahoma City Memorial.

(Of course I'm not smiling here--it was a sad place!)


Talk about a humbling, reverent experience. I was only 14 years old when the bombing happened and I remember being completely confused about what was going on and why it happened at all. I couldn't fathom why anyone, and American citizens no less, would do something so horrible to our country. Sixteen years later and it still makes no sense.

Upon entering the memorial, I was completely overcome by it all and had to hold back tears, especially when I looked down at my own precious little boy and remembered the images in the news from 16 years ago of a firefighter carrying the body of a little child from the burning building.

Definitely a site I won't soon forget.

To lighten things up, we also paid a visit to the Cowboy Museum. Definitely not as cheezy as I expected it to be. Kinda cool, actually. Kinda cool, that is until all the Mexican food James had been consuming over the last few days came back to bite me. Let's just say as soon as I picked him up from the saddle below, it was no longer a dry saddle. I spent the next 15 minutes in the restroom washing his shorts out.

So I have to brag about my family for a minute. They are all amazing athletes. The morning after my parents arrived, they and Amy ran a 5k. Now a 5k probably doesn't seem like much to anyone who actually runs. But to someone who has never even watched a 5k let alone run one, watching my family run one was an eye opening experience.

After that morning, I've added another goal to my list: run a 5k. As soon as I can get in good enough shape to run a single mile, maybe I'll start training for one.

I was very proud of my parents that day. My mom even came in first place for her age group.

Oh, and James was proud of them all, too! Here he is sporting his grandma's winning medal:

All in all, it was a great trip. Even though James was less than angelic on the flight home, it was worth it just to spend those few precious days with my family.

Me, Myself, and I

The other day I sat down and had a little chat with myself.

It went something like this:

"For someone who claims they miss their old friends horribly and is always complaining about how hard it is to make new friends, you sure are anti-social."

Which then led to this:

"With all that time spent NOT going out and doing things, you sure aren't accomplishing much at home."

And it's true. I've been invited to quite a few outings over the last few weeks and for one reason or another (some reasons totally valid, some not), I made absolutely zero effort to go to any of them.

What's my problem, anyway?

I can only conclude that I've just been lazy and super anti-social, which is not a good recipe for making and keeping friends, or for having a good life and accomplishing goals, for that matter.

It seems I've got a million things on my mind these days and another million things on my to-do list. I want to be social, but I also want to sit at home and read the huge stack of books next to my bed. I want to get out and try new things but sometimes I get so tied up in the various ways I can save money that I forget that sometimes it's okay to spend a little money to actually do some living! I want a clean house but even though I've got lots of time to do it, the last thing I usually want to do is clean. I have a list of self-improvement projects and personal goals a mile long but haven't actually set out to accomplish any of them, other than to actually write down that I want to do them (which is somewhat of a start, I guess).

So today I vow to recommit myself to the motto I set myself to earlier this year.

I can do hard things (inspired by a Young Women's lesson earlier this year). It's simple but rings so true to my sometimes half-hearted effort to live and put myself out there.

My main goal this year is to actually write that book I've been talking about for years. Oh, and to be a more patient mother even when my nearly 18-month old son continually wakes up at 2 in the morning and doesn't want to go back to sleep for another several hours.

I can do hard things but that is not one of them I want to do . . . .