Jim decided to take a mental health day last week so he could hang out with Jim-Jim, and he asked me if I would mind if he took Jim-Jim to his first movie to see Toy Story 3. Through gritted teeth I said, “I’d go without you, so you boys have fun.” They had a great time and were able to really bond over Buzz Lightyear and movie popcorn. It made me realize it’s so very important for them to be able to experience their own firsts together. If I’m 100% honest, I think I was more frustrated about missing out on a chance to eat movie popcorn!

Hoo boy! I kept telling myself that keeping blogging on the long list of things that life requires of me would get easier as Jim-Jim got just a little bit older and more independent. Go ahead all you parents who actually know what you’re doing, laugh at with me now.  Silly first-time mommy! At the end of every day after I’ve put Jim-Jim down for the night, it’s all I can do to pretend I’ve painted a wall so I can stare at it and watch it dry. My mind is completely numb after  working a full day then coming home to walk the boy through dinner and a bath and rocking him to sleep- even with all of Jim’s help. I’ve figured out it requires 10x the amount of words to get Jim-Jim to do what I want him to do than it would take to instruct a person with a multi-syllabic vocabulary and an attention span longer than three seconds. If I want Jim-Jim to throw something away, it requires me to say, “Alright, buddy, take this to the trash. That’s a good boy. Keep going. No don’t feed it to Bailey, put it in the trash can. Throw it away for me, big guy. You’ve got it. Good boy!” I’ll spare you our bath time and bedtime conversations.

So, I’ve been more absent on the blogosphere than I originally imagined I would be. My words are all used up trying to keep my toddler focused on the task at hand, so I have none left for you, dear internet. Jim’s out playing poker with the boys on this Friday night, and I’m sitting here after a long work week with a Smirnoff in one hand and a moon pie in the other, neither of which we ever have in our house so this is a rare moment indeed. Your guess is as good as mine as to how we came about the alcohol, and it’s probably been 20 years since I’ve seen a moon pie. Hello, again, long lost friends!

Jim’s out, boy’s down for the night, television’s off (beautiful silence!), and I’m sucking down a malt beverage trying to figure out what I want to say about the pictures I took last month for this post that never got written. I’ll give you the words I have left. Family/special friends came to Dallas. Met for dinner. Lots of fun! Sad they’re gone:( Now, back to watching pretend paint dry.

It must be rough having such neat people care so much about you!

Jim-Jim with the birthday boy, refueling so they can go at it again.

Then crashing

We miss being around them so much, we have a family-sized hole in our hearts!

The question I keep asking myself is how we protect our little man from the throws of life that provoke feelings of isolation and hopelessness. And I know the answer is, you just don’t. But that doesn’t prevent me from wanting to wrap my boy in a blankie and carry him close to my chest until I can walk him down the aisle to marry the special woman he chooses who will never, ever take his heart for granted. But even then, safe in the confines of marriage, heart-ache happens. Despair infiltrates. Hopelessness abounds. There’s no way to protect a child from the ups and downs of life. And in my heart I know that’s a good thing because where there’s heartache, there’s growth. I’d be doing a disservice to Jim-Jim’s future wife if I walk down the aisle and deliver a tantrum-throwing 25-year-old. I mean, he’s pretty cute now and can get away with taking whatever he wants and saying, “Mine!”, but that’s not as cute from a man with facial hair.

So, have you glanced down at the picture yet and thought, where the heckfire is that woman going with this? Well, hold on to your drawers, we’re about to get there. The night we found out about Carson, Jim and I were laying in bed talking it over when Jim-Jim got out of his bed and walked into our room. Jim and I knew that good parents would put him back to bed, but we looked at each other and decided we both desperately wanted to cuddle up with Jim-Jim. We let the boy crawl between us, and we kissed his squishy cheeks. For about 10 minutes, until he’d kicked us both enough times that we decided we’d had enough abuse cuddling and sent him back to his bed. So, you see, I know this is all my fault. I let my parenting guard down for one minute, and Jim-Jim has been coming out of his room every night since then. Every night.

The boy has gone a very long time without coming out of his room after we put him down, but it’s different this time. We hear Jim-Jim open his door, and we looked towards the hallway to find Jim-Jim walking towards us, hands covering his eyes. Every. Single. Time. If he can’t see us, we can’t see him, right? You have to love the mind of a toddler. Now, if I can just figure out how to protect that precious mind of his.

Jim and I had signed up to work baptism after church on the night baby Kylee’s parents had asked us to watch her, but these new parents were so desperate for a night out trusted us enough to let us take her to church with us. That’s two car seats to wrestle. Two nurseries to go to in two separate buildings on the church campus. Two bottles/cups of milk to make for two impatient kiddos. One of which has been an only child for two whole years of his ego-centric life. I thought if anything could convince us that we weren’t ready to be a family of four, it was this night!

I was concerned Jim-Jim would be completely jealous of the attention miss Kylee needed from me. And with all but one instance where Jim-Jim climbed into my lap as I was holding Kylee to declare, “MY mommy!”, Jim-Jim proved me so very wrong. Kylee was teething, and we couldn’t dose her with Tylenol fast enough! Couple that with a late night-time bottle and being awake past her bed time, she was none too thrilled. And she let us know. Very loudly! Jim-Jim was fraught with worry. He paced back and forth in front of me as I held her, repeating, “Oh my goodness! Oh my goodness! Baby crying!” He tried giving her a kiss on the cheek. Then a bottle. Then a pacifier. Then a hug. He was so compassionate, showing me undoubtedly what a good big brother he is (hopefully!) going to be. Does Advil help with this type of fever because we’re burning up!

Poor Uncle Ryan didn’t know what he was getting into staying in a house with a toddler. He’s used to his bachelor pad where life starts beating after mid-day. To protect him from our 6am alarm clock, we brought Jim-Jim into our room and entertained him there.

The best way to entertain my narcissistic boy is to show him pictures or videos of himself. He’ll be mesmerized for hours. We take him to the blog and with each additional post, he says, “Mo more! Mo more!” For some reason, he was overly fascinated with his lollipop video, and he kept asking to go back to it. We still had a lollipop left from Jim’s travels, so Jim had the brilliant idea to grab it while Jim-Jim was watching the video. Isn’t that what life’s about? Big, sticky lollipops before breakfast.

That kept the boy entertained for a little while, but Uncle Ryan wasn’t spared an early wake up call. I’m thinking he needed a serious nap later. I usually do!

On another note, if anyone has the antidote that keeps your kids from growing up, I’m shopping around. I did Uncle Ryan’s laundry after his 10-day hiking trip to the Colorado mountains where he wore two outfits the whole time and washed zero times. Sheesh! They needed smelling salts to bring me out of my coma after the wave of smelliness first hit! I want to keep Jim-Jim in a stage of under-active seat glands. But I don’t need the antidote just yet. I at least want to get to the stage where the boy can wipe his own bottom before we freeze him in time.