Way back when I started this blog, my vision/hope/desire/idea was to share my life with y’all, my family, friends and readers.

We went to a party tonight with our Sunday school friends and families and as we drove home {with kids screaming in the back of the van…bless their hearts, they were so tired}, I looked thru all the pictures I took today…and I thought, when did I stop sharing stuff on my blog? When did it get so hard to take 30 minutes to sit down and write a few words and dump a bunch of photos in a post? I won’t bore you with all the excuses :)

There’s so much to catch you up on – like Reynolds is 4.5 years old {what.in.the.world.} and smarter than smart. Eliza Jane is such a mixture of sweet and sass at the fierce young age of 3. And Emory..the sweet babe, is 11 months old now. And he’s such the 3rd child in all his laid-back ways {that didn’t come from me at.all}.

Instead of writing a bunch of words tonight, I just want to share some of my favorite photos from the day.

Much love to you…and good night.

Our ‘Sweet Eliza Jane’ turned three last Wednesday and I decided earlier this year that I was going to make a point of really celebrating our children on their birthdays.

It’s my personal belief that your birthday is for celebrating YOU.

I made her chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast – that she wasn’t thrilled about so I’ll spare you that photo.

At school she was VERY shy and didn’t want her picture taken 

Until we got inside and she saw her sweet friend, Reagan.  Then she was all smiles and giggles

Much like I did for Reynolds’ birthday, I took off the afternoon to spend with my sweet baby girl. I hadn’t planned out all the details of our afternoon together, but I had a few ideas up my sleeve.

I think now I will also tell you that the afternoon before Eliza Jane’s birthday, her younger brother got sick. As in, phone call an hour before pick-up to tell me he’d had three yucky diapers, and that he had to be out for 24 hours, meaning he couldn’t come back until Thursday.

……………………..

I will be completely honest with you and tell you that I was really sad about this. Her afternoon was supposed to be with and for her. But alas, we rolled with the punches!

I picked up my sweet girl a little after noon…she was lying on her cot, fast asleep.

I picked up her little limp self and put her in the car. Confused, she just stared at me asking what we were doing and where we were going. I kept telling her that it was her birthday and we were going to have an afternoon of fun!

After talking to daddy and confirming that he was still at home, we made our way to the house to pick up little brother so daddy could go to work.

Thankfully, Emory fell asleep in the car on the way to our first destination.

The Mad Platter. Our little girl loves to color and draw. She is one who will come home from a long day at school, just to sit down at her little table and start coloring. Or some days it’s the first thing she does when she gets up in the morning.

So as I contemplated the Zoo {it was a million degrees outside so that was NOT happening}, the children’s museum… and other places, I decided that the Mad Platter was the best fit for her!

We strolled around the store trying to find something small enough, but yet still big enough that she would enjoy painting…and we settled on a little octagon dish.

 

Ms. Margaret {I think that was her name!} helped us pick out some colors and we got started. I love the concentration in this photo… Tadaaaaaa! Oh, but wait. I wanted to keep painting she said… Guess who woke up… We got more paint colors…and painted the same thing over {and over…} and over again.

 

She really had a great time painting her little dish!  Now I have to remember to go pick it up from the store!

Next up, she wanted to go to gymnastics, but a class for smaller kids was about to start and I knew she wouldn’t be able to participate so I convinced her to come down from the ledge {it was nearly a break-down moment} and asked where else she might want to go.

“PUBLIX!”

“You want to go to PUBLIX?!” I asked?

“Yes m’am.”

“What do you want to get at Publix?”

“STRAWBERRIES!!!!”

“We have strawberries at home already…”

“Ummmm. BLACKBERRIES!!!!”

“You want to go to Publix to get blackberries?”

“YES!”

“Then what?”

“Go home and eat my blackberries!”

Duh. So. We went to Publix, got blackberries and then went home for her to eat them.

Next up was getting her ears pierced.

Let me just say this: SHE ASKED FOR THIS FOR 6 MONTHS.  She’d been talking about getting her ears pierced for a very long time. Very.LONG.time.

So I confirmed once again, “You want to get your ears pierced?” “Yes m’am.”

We were planning to meet her friend Reagan, and her parents at the spot at 5:15.

I was nervous. I knew it was either going to go great, or it was going to be a complete disaster.

Traffic was horrible trying to get to the place we went. I could feel my palms getting sweaty.

We got there and Reagan was already checked in so they took her back. She cried for all of 30 seconds I think. Great! I thought. This is going to be good. Eliza Jane hadn’t even noticed her friend’s cries as we took our selfie 

Now it was our turn.

We got into the room and like a little turtle, she pulled into her shell.

She tucked her head and put her hands up at her face.

I talked to her about how she’d wanted to get her ears pierced and how Reagan had just done it, and weren’t her earrings so pretty and don’t you want to do this?

She made noises and shrugged her shoulders.

The ladies who were waiting to punch holes in her ears were so sweet. One gently said, “I don’t think she’s ready, mom.”

So as I picked her up to leave, she said “You sit next to me, momma.” As if I was just going to lean against the wall and leave her there by herself.

I hugged her and said I would be right there with her. She held her head up and let them mark the spots where her new little earrings would go. Then I moved us down to the end of the table.

All set and ready, they did a count down.

 

 

 

SCREAMING.

Thrashing of the head.

TEARS.

My heart was beating out of my chest. Not good! NOT GOOD!

She was scared and angry. And I was shocked by what had just happened.

“We have to get the backs on; we didn’t get the backs on” the ladies were saying to me.

I looked at them like ‘what am I supposed to do about that? my child is now screaming her head off’.

Literally 15 minutes of screaming and crying. My ears were numb. I wanted to crawl into a dark corner. I wanted her to know how sorry I was because she clearly believed that I chose to do this to her.

She wouldn’t let anyone touch her ears. I put on gloves to put the backs on but she just jerked her head around.

“You’re going to lose your earrings if you don’t let us put the backs on.”

She didn’t care.

She even said, “my not want these earrings”.

Again, I wanted to crawl into a dark cave.

After trying to reason with her {I must have been insane}, I gave up. They put the backs into a little bag and I took them with us as we left the store.

I’m thankful to Reagan’s mom and dad who entertained Emory while I dealt with the birthday girl…

Bless her heart.

After all that all she wanted was to go to Chick-Fil-A, play on the playground and eat icecream.

She deserved a full gallon of icecream for going thru with the ear-piercing.

I, however, needed two gallons.

At the CFA, she wouldn’t let anyone touch her ears. We tried to see if she would let Grandma or Aunt Cissy put the backs on, but she would have nothing of it.

“Fine” I think I said. “If the earrings fall out, that’s it.” {I’m not doing THAT again. EVER.}

Her sweet Aunt Cissy got her a Belle dress for her birthday – the princess she most adores.  Thank you, Aunt Cissy!

I’m just glad she was smiling here. Y’all, it was just so awful. I felt like the worst mom ever. After I had tried to make her birthday so fun and memorable. I hope it was for her.

Back home and after bath time and in bed, the earrings were still in. As I was on the verge of panicking over the dang earrings Andrew said, let’s just put the backs on after she falls asleep.

You’re thinking it can’t get any worse than it was, right?

Hope you’re still sitting down.

So around 9 p.m. we grabbed that little baggie of earring backs and crept into her quiet little room. She was sleeping so soundly. And praise Jesus, the earrings were still in. I pulled out one back and wrestled the stupid thing onto her right earring. I’d forgotten that the darn things had notches in them so that little hands couldn’t take the earrings out before it was time. I think it took me four tries before it finally snapped onto the post.

We took a deep breath and said together that we needed to roll her over to get to the left ear.

Andrew rolled her onto her other side.

I brushed her hair away from the ear and she slapped my hand away.

I waited to be sure she was still sleeping.

I found the post and was trying so hard to get the second back onto it’s earring.

My hands were shaking I was so nervous. I’m sure I was sweating.

She swatted my hand again, and as she did the EARRING FELL OUT OF HER EAR!

“SH*T!!!!” I whispered loudly {I don’t normally curse…} to which Andrew replied, “GET THE STUPID THING IN HER EAR!”

I tried to push it back into the hole, that was now BLEEDING, and couldn’t get it to do anything.

“GET IT IN THERE!” he said again.

“YOU DO IT!!!!!” I retorted.

As she started to cry and scream, he grabbed the earring, shoved it back into the hole and pushed the back on as hard as he could.

By this point she really was crying and screaming.

I leaped from the bed and ran downstairs to get her some Tylenol.

By that point Andrew had rocked her back to a half-sleep so he laid her back down in the bed. And then he said to me, “is her ear supposed to bleed like that?”

“We just punched holes in her ears today, of course they’re going to BLEED!!!”

Back in the hallway, I think we high-fived each other with a job somewhat well done…

 

The next morning she walked up to me, and in her sleepy voice said, “Momma. You put my backs on last night?”

I laughed and said, “I sure did baby girl!”

She likes her earrings today. And in case you’re wondering, yes, I’m thankful I only have one little girl that I have to do that with because I would never survive another.

 

many hugs to you tonight!

Kids know just how to punch you in the gut, don’t they?

I’m not talking about the “I hate you, get out of my life” drama that I PRAY hard we never deal with…

I’m talking about the bedtime, “No, MOMMA, I didn’t want YOU to put me to bed.  I want DADDY!” drama.

It’s often Reynolds who gives me the boot out of his bed {and seemingly out of his heart…}.  And I’m sort of okay with it, some nights.  Whatever, he wants his dad.  It’s a guy thing, sure.  Okay.  I can get on board with that.

But Eliza Jane…seriously.  The girls need to stick together here.  We’re outnumbered….she’s supposed to be on MY team right?!

Tonight was going along great, she got in her nightgown, hopped into the bed and {flip! the switch}, she lost it.  She screamed that Mariah Carey scream {that makes my ears start to bleed}, shoved her face into the bed and burst into tears.  I sat there completely unaware of anything that had just happened….  Bewildered beyond anything.

“MY NOT WANT YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  MY WANT MY DALLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Seriously.

She punched me in the gut.  The heart.  I was shattered.  She was so completely distraught that I was the one to sing her songs, pray her prayer and wipe those sweet curls out of her face to kiss her goodnight.

HE didn’t push you out of the smallest hole in his body and provide your sole nourishment the first four months of your life, but whatever.  Fine.  You can have him.

I’ll go sit on my favorite couch and drink a straw-berrita while eating a half-pint of icecream.  I’m not hurt.  I’ll be fine.

sniff.

I walked out of the banshee’s room and into Reynolds’ where the boys where having a lovely story time and recounted to “Dally” what had just happened.

“She wanted YOU, she just said it!” he stated, confused as I was.  I’m pretty sure Reynolds laughed at the drama I had acted out for them.

“Well.  She no longer wants ME, she wants YOU.”  and I stood there with my pout-pout face on.   And then I walked out.

And back into her room.  I had debated going back in.  She was still crying over Dally…

Somehow I got her pulled back from the proverbial cliff.  She smiled and laughed at me…she told me she loved me with her tiny hands holding my face.  She kissed me and said “night night momma, lus you” as I walked out the door and blew her a kiss.

I guess I did something right.  My gut feels better…my heart no longer shattered.  Maybe she does love me after all.

Praying you feel loved by the crazy people in your life tonight…Sweet dreams friends…