Summer 2010

My summer was filled with special times (and challenging times too of course) with my boys and very little else. I think in years past this may have bothered me some but somewhere in the last year I seem to have finally settled into being a parent and a stay at home mom. Yeah, I know, it only took me 4.5 years right? All I know is that I'm very happy! I think this recent facebook status of mine sums it up...

There are many things in life that I thought I'd be, but I'm not. And there are many things in life that I never thought I'd be, but I am.

Yet the reality is that I am happy and am loved (and that I love) more deeply than I ever could have imagined.

I love my boys so much and enjoy spending time with them and learning new things about them each day. Jack and Joey are so drastically different from each other, it does make things interesting. I also think that a big factor in my recent surge of happiness and peace is related to my parents moving to town. They are now just 20 minutes away instead of 5 hours away. They frequently come up for lunch with me and the boys a couple times a week and usually come on the weekend to babysit the boys for a couple hours so John and I can reintroduce ourselves to each other over breakfast or lunch. I know getting to see them so often has really helped decrease the isolation I have felt in the past from being a full time stay at home mom. And it has been wonderful to see their relationships with each of the boys continue to grow.

Here's a picture of us celebrating my dad's birthday with "little grandma and grandpa" this summer:

Anyway it was a wonderful summer where we did a whole lot of wonderful nuthin' together. The one big thing we did do as a family was go up to my aunt's cabin in July with my parents and my aunt. Despite the fact that there wasn't any AC in our cabin with 90 degree weather we still had a great time.

Here's some photos from the trip:

Nothing quite like playing with big brother's toys.

One of the highlights of the trip for Jack was frog catching... or chasing... or unfortunately sometimes clunking. (And yes those are dragon wings taped to the back of Jack's shirt in the picture above...and yes ironically enough the shirt is an ACDC shirt.)

And to a one year old, most anything is an adventure.

The boys had fun but clearly they were thrilled to be back home again... John included :)

It was a great trip and Jack and I will be going back to the cabin this week on our own with my parents. I'm excited for our first Jackie-Mommy only trip. I know we will miss Joey and John/ daddy, as they will us, but we will create some wonderful memories with my parents... and hopefully not freeze!
Here are a few snapshots of the rest of our summer:

Early in June we celebrated Joey's 1st Birthday. It was low key for many reasons but still lots of fun.


Joey started walking everywhere in June and has been going non-stop since, usually with a crazy smile on his face. And it seems like when he isn't walking he's climbing something dangerous!
I'm sure one of the highlights for the boys was when the workers came to remove the diseased Elm tree from our backyard. They parked themselves by the back patio window for hours!

We also went to the amusement park at Mall of America. Jack is really looking forward to hitting the height requirement to go on the next level of rides which includes a big roller coaster.

And we went to the MN Zoo a couple times. Once I was adventurous and went on my own with the boys... we survived :) Here they are in the play area in a big "nest".

But much of our summer was simply spent by almost daily walks to the local store for a donut or muffin and viewing of the local construction site a well as lots of backyard adventures.

And constant exclamations by Jack of "Nooo Joooeeeey!!!!"

As summer winds down and we spend more time in doors, this has become the most recent brother activity. Between their rough play together and Joey's propensity for climbing anything and everything, I'm sure Fall/Winter 2010 will probably include a trip to urgent care at some point!

My life is quite simple but filled with so much love. It amazes me how being a stay at home mom can be so mind numbing and yet so challenging to the core! But I love being home with my boys (most days) and wouldn't trade it for the world.

Jack's Birthday Celebration(s)

In case you didn't see my last entry (way below the millions of pictures), I changed the title of my blog to The Better Late Than Never Blog. Yeah, this is one of the reasons why the title fits so well. I am just now sharing Jack's birthday celebration pictures. So here goes:

We had presents and cake with just us on Jack's birthday and a big friends party the following Saturday. Here's a picture of my big beautiful 4 year old with his token (you'll see why later) birthday cake on the day of his birthday. I love that sweet smile!

And here he is pigging out on cake. Much of the time he just eats the frosting... of course.

And here's the birthday boy getting in a before bed wrestle with his little brother.

And here's the Jack on the day of his birthday celebration with his friends. I think the hat lasted all of about 2 minutes. We had 6 friends over for his birthday - 3 boys from school (Ben, Will and Nathaniel) and 3 girls we regularly have playdates with (Teagan and then 2 sisters, Angela and Leah). We were a bit worried about it being chaotic with 7 kids running around and expected at least a couple of meltdowns but it went very well (despite me having to tell one child that we don't say "what the hell!" in our house :) and we had ZERO meltdowns! Honestly, I most expected one from my own emotional child but it was a fun tear-free day.

We had my friend Lori make Jack a crocodile cake because he's been pretty obsessed with crocodiles much of 2010. The cake she made was AMAZING! I love Jack's expression here (as well as throughout the party) when we had him come see the cake for the first time. It's that special little smile and giggle you get when he is so genuinely excited and surprised about something.

The opening of presents was utter chaos of course. But Jack got some wonderful presents from all his little friends.

The kids thought the cake was really amazing. Jack was a pretty disappointed because I carved up the tail and wouldn't let him eat the crocodile's head right away. We had family coming over the next day for a small celebration so I wanted to save it till then. Again I love his expression here - pure excitement and wonder!

With preschoolers it's kind of hard to think of what to do with them at a party. They are a bit young for most party games (not to mention it's asking for a Jackie-meltdown) and Jack's birthday is March so going outside is tough. So we thought of to blow up a ton of balloons (OK 72 balloons and John blew all of them up but one) and put them in the basement with the gift boxes. It was a bit hard to come up with a theme around a crocodile so we did somewhat of a pirate theme. Here is Jack leading his friends down to all the balloons.

They had tons of fun just running around kicking and batting the balloons up into the air. It was a good way to get out some energy :)

Gradually they discovered the gift boxes sitting on the trunk with a big stuffed crocodile "guarding" them.

Eventually one of the kids (probably the oldest, Angela) got the idea to push a bunch of the balloons into the little closed off hallway off the family room so they could really be in a "room" filled with balloons. This is where many of the kids spent the next 45 minutes.

Jack got the idea to collect bunches of the balloons in a big box and then dump them into the little enclosed space all at once. He was quite intent on his job :)

But would still join in the fun once the space was filled again.

I love this picture and I love these girls! The 3 girls had a great time together. Good thing too since 2 of them have separately talked of marrying Jack or having him as their boyfriend, so things could have been kind of awkward.

Oh my sweet Jackie! I'm so glad you had a wonderful birthday celebration. You are such a special boy and worth celebrating!

Changing my blog name

Well as I've finally started to work on the blog entry about Jack's birthday, which was over 2 months ago, I've decided to change the name of my blog. Every entry I do is much later than I intend and there are a dozen blog entries in between there that never get written. So I'm changing my blog name to The Better Late Than Never Blog. It really described my blog style. Maybe it will help me give myself more grace and just write when I can rather than feel guilty about not recording things in a more timely manner. And in reality as Loving the Simple Life described my life pretty accurately, so does Better Late than Never. I've started (and restarted) many things in my life rather late. I got married in my thirties and started having kids in my mid-thirties. Got my masters around then too, which also changed my career focus. Well technically my career focus right now is being a stay at home mom and not loosing my mind at the same time so I suppose even with my new career direction on hold it will be another "better late than never" kind of thing. I plan to hopefully resume working when Joey is preschool age. Anyway, I introduce to you The Better Late Than Never Blog.

(And for my own personal historical purpose I'm going to include here the original description of my blog when it was titled Loving the Simple Life. It still fits but this new name seems to fit better right now :) -
Loving the Simple Life - I'm Mary Jo or MJ. As my blog title states, I'm loving the simple life. I mean it isn't always overtly simple but I'm loving the "simple" things in my life like being a stay at home mom, my fun intense son Jack, my sweet sweet smiley baby Joey and my rock of a husband John. I've realized that the difficult things I've gone through in life, the not so simple times in my life, have caused me to appreciate times like this. So this is me, just loving the simple life.

A Bedtime Story: How I became a mommy

I thought for Mother's Day it would be fun to share the bedtime story, a true story, that I tell Jackie every night. He curls up in my lap in his bed and I tell this story: (all italicized words are usually said by Jack)

Once upon a time there was a man names John and a woman named Mary Jo and there last name was stinky pot of water! (or some other made up word) Well, they met and fell in love and decided to get married. After a while they decided they wanted to have a family so they got a little tiny baby in mommy's tummy. That baby grew bigger and bigger and bigger until he was ready to come out and live with mommy and daddy.

They went to the hospital and after a while ppbbt out came the baby and the baby cried waah! The dr. said "It's a boy!"

And mommy said "Give me my Baby Jack!" And they put Baby Jack on mommy's chest and she covered him with a blanket. Mommy snuggled that baby, looked at him and knew he would be her little boy forever and ever.

Mommy and new Baby Jack stayed that way for a long time until the nurse came in and said "We need to take that baby and put a diaper and some clothes on him." But when they pulled the blanket back and picked up the baby they found that the baby had POOPED ALL OVER HIS MOMMY! Icky poopy!

But that mommy said "Oh that stinky baby, but he's my baby and I'll always love him no matter what."

So mommy and daddy took that stinky baby Jack home. After a while he grew bigger and bigger and soon began to walk and talk and run around and kick a ball. Baby Jack became a big boy so mommy and daddy thought he might like to have a little baby brother so they got another little tiny baby in mommy's tummy.

That baby grew bigger and bigger until he was so big in mommy's tummy that Jack could hardly fit on her lap anymore. Finally, he was so big it was time for him to come out and live with mommy, daddy and Jack. Little grandma and grandpa came to stay with Jack and mommy and daddy went to the hospital to have the baby. After a while ppbbt out came the baby and the baby cried waah! And mommy said "Give me my baby Joey!"

So they set that Baby Joey on mommy's chest but before they could cover him up he PEE-PEED ALL OVER HIS MOMMY! And mommy said "Oh my stinky boys! The first baby pooped on me (insert Jackie sound affects) and the second one peed on me (sound affects again) but I still love my stinky boys and I always will no matter what!"

THE END

Remembering

Joey is growing up too fast. Jack is too. I mean because Joey's a baby I notice it more obviously and yet I swear each time I go to re-tuck Jack into bed in the middle of the night after feeding Joey I'm shocked at how big Jack has become. Some how having a second child makes your children grow up faster... or at least you notice it more often.


Now, almost every time when I feed Joey and he falls asleep in my arms for nap time or bedtime I get all mushy -sentimental and usually a little sad. Sometimes a lot sad with a twist of happy if that's possible. He's just not much of a little baby any more. I look over at Jack and he's not a baby at all. Well OK when he whines and throws a fit it's like he's a baby still but he's more big boy than baby. But when I hold Joey asleep in my arms, nuzzled against my chest, my heart melts...I tear up. I want to make this moment last forever. At least I want to remember it forever. But now that this is the second time I've gone through this, I know I won't. You remember images and pictures and all but not the essence of it. Not the make-your-heart-melt essence of holding your sleeping baby. Kissing their check before you lay them in bed. Wanting to stop time and just breathe them in.

I remember when Jack was an infant and was having various struggles with him... basically not liking the baby stage and wanting him to grow up, some people would say to me "oh they all grow up too fast..." or "oh they are babies for such a short time..." Well, for some reason I didn't believe it then. I didn't feel it then. But now I do. Oh my how I do, for both of my boys. I want to stop time and just be here, now, with them.