Great Day

Taking out his girlfriend for a cruise in his chariot.

Making sure his lady is comfortable.
Kissing up to his lady's older brother.
No word of a lie. As soon as Victor (baby girl's daddy) walked ahead and turned the corner, John ran over and grabbed her hand.
Aren't they adorable?
So heartbreakingly adorable.

Don't you just have visions of both of them in future years?

Isn't John's girlfriend the cutest little gal? I just want to freeze this moment.

Big Boy Bed

We finally transitioned John from his crib to a big boy bed. Although, the word transition implies that we put much more effort into this process than we actually did.

Our method was telling John about a big boy bed. How exciting a big boy bed would be. How wonderful a big boy bed was. How he shouldn't pee in a big boy bed.

We sort of shopped around. Originally we thought, hey a bunk bed would be awesome. I had bunk beds growing up and aside from nailing myself in the head every now & then, the bunk beds were great. And then when we got older, the bunk beds dissembled and they were two separate beds.

Then we saw the captain's bed with drawers underneath. What a wonderful storage idea.

Because we are bargain shoppers, we shopped around. We checked online.

Then because we are complete knobs. We consulted our 3-year old and let him decide what bed to purchase.

We bought the biggest bed and the most inappropriate bed ever. Did you know that the recommended age is 6yrs old to be on the top bunk? Did you know that the maximum weight is 150lbs for the top bunk? Yeh, so pretty much only Dawna, Libby & for maybe the next year Russ will be allowed on the top bunk.

But John loves his big boy bed.

Sweat equity, can't beat it. He's a walking ad for Home Depot.

John loves his tools. Steven loves his tools too. Never too early to start learning.

Right there, over weight allowance. When I was up there, I was scared that I was going to fall through. First night.
Can you see what is missing?

No bedrail. At this point, Steven felt that John didn't need one. I disagreed. How adorable is he?
My boys. John wants Riley on the bed. But could you imagine? Riley would never leave the bed if he thought that he was allowed up there. Not to mention all the dog hair.
I envision Riley sleeping in his room, but so far he's not liking the idea.
Nite, nite baby boy.

Now I lay me down to sleep.

On night two, he fell out of bed. Steven & John went to buy a bed rail the following morning.

Heartbreak

When you come home from work and one of the first things your son says to you is ask:

"you go work in morning?"

Breaks my heart every single time. Every single night.

The Pringle Philosopy

Why can't we all live like John? Don't you wish you could take such joy in the simple things?

Like eating Pringles.

Live your life like you're eating pringles with John.

I guarantee that you'll smile.

I am an Artiste!

This is the first time I let John use his "paint" markers. He was so excited. Seriously, they are MASTERPIECES. I kid you not!

Check me out. I will be showing my pieces of work at an art gallery soon.

Talking to Auntie Two.

Still talking.

Showing Auntie Two his artwork and Riley's breath mints.

FYI to all of you out there in Blogger land. John likes Skype. Email me if you want to set up a Skype date with John.

What Up, Whitey

There aren't enough words to do this one justice.

Whitey, John still asks about you.

An Anniversary...Sort of

On Sunday it will two years since my mom had her stroke.

I'm not sure how I feel about this milestone. This is remarkably different than last year. Last year I was still able to say (or rather think) that a year ago today my mom was doing this or a year ago today I talked to my mom...or even a year ago today my mom was alive. :(

But two years. It seems like so long ago. A lifetime ago. So much has happened since then. In therapy he said that the grieving process is more like 3 years. The first year is mostly a fog. You are simply striving to survive and merely existing. The second year, you may be actively trying to regain your life. Then the third year, you are more able to process your emotions and you are more willing to allow the good to outweigh the sad.

But really, WTF? How do I measure all this? At the 10-11 month mark my dad took a dramatic spiral downward. The a year less a week my dad died. Does this mean I'm back at square one or rather year one? It's been a whole lot of two steps forward, ten steps backward.

But life goes on.

However, that should be said happily. LIFE GOES ON!

If you knew my mom, you would know that she would most likely be mad if I were to wallow or allow her death to overtake my life. She would tsk, shake her head and say "don't be stupid". Or tilt her head to the side, roll her eyes at me and wave her hand freely and tell me that LIFE GOES ON.

My dad would be a different story altogether. I think he would prefer if people grieved for him. He was kind of selfish like that. I don't think he would want me to stop living, don't get me wrong, I'd like to think that deep down he did love me.

But I digress. Now where was I? Oh yeah. So this weekend, is an anniversary of sorts. I'm going to honor her memory by LIVING MY LIFE. Not to any great extremes because that's not the type of person that I am. But by humbly going forward and taking each day as it comes.

I'm not the preachy-preach type. All that jazz about being grateful for whatever time that I have. I mean if you want to think of it that way then really it's even more depressing. I'd rather just be happy to be around.