Max's 1 Year Photos

I could seriously not help myself.






I finally managed to take Max's 1 year photos this weekend,



at one of my favorite places of all time, the Dallas Arboretum.








And because he is mine,



and because he is one,



and because he gets the raw end of the deal in so many other ways,



and because he is just so unbelievably cute,


and I just couldn't choose,


I had to post 20,




gluttonous





photos.




For a few minutes I regretted not having his hair cut,




But then I got this one,




and knew I would have missed that cute little curl.

Taming the Mane

Haircuts have changed.

Once upon a time there was running and grabbing,



Screaming and flailing.



And the haircuts were always long over due, happening whenever Grandma was in town.

Nowadays the visits are much more frequent, though this cut was not a second too soon.
I don't think it's ever been this long before.


There is no more yelling or running,



screaming or flailing.




To be completely honest, there were still a few tears.



But the end result is better than ever.




And if Mom ever decides to quit her day job, I can apparently supply her with all the hairy clients she'll need, cause this little buddy is next.

Our Daddy must work in HR

I keep waiting to find out that I'm being replaced by a machine or that my job is being outsourced to India. I am definitely not keeping up with production around here.

Monday we were waiting for the delivery of our new mattress. Unfortunately our cat-pee mattress which had been stank-free since the incident started reeking after we moved. I don't know if it was the week in storage or what. What I do know is that it only took one night to convince us both that no matter the cost, we would be buying a new bed.

My unpacking had slowed anyways, with most of the essentials unearthed. We had been relegated to the h0use for so many days by time frames like 8-11, 10-1, 1-5, all for various installers, setter-uppers, and deliverers.

But by mid-morning on Monday we needed to get out. It was beautiful weather so I decided that a walk was in order. My sprained ankle had been healing gloriously and I had been walking without much pain for a few days. It had it's moments of weakness, now and again and still hurt if I moved it the wrong way. But walking didn't give me much trouble.

So off we went. I chatted with my sister on the phone while I pushed the double stroller. The delivery man called to tell me he was 30 minutes away so I turned around and headed home. In front of my neighbors house I must have stepped on an acorn, or a crack, or a shadow, and I rolled my ankle again. I didn't fall because I hung on to the stroller, but I did hop on one foot the rest of the way and collapsed on the ground in front of the garage. I called my mom, who was luckily working just a few minutes away. I could not remember the code to open the garage. And in less than 2 minutes my already slightly swollen ankle looked like I had stuffed a softball under my skin. I started to feel light headed. Then my mom showed up.

It's not broken.

The doctor scolded me for not wearing the aircast. He gave me crutches and asked me if I needed a note for work. I told him it would be unnecessary given that fact that my employers can't read.

After a day, I ditched the crutches because the whole idea was laughable. It's been an interesting few days. I think I might wear out the knees in my new jeans from all the crawling I've done.

I will go to the orthopedist tomorrow. He will probably tell me that I should be elevating it and icing it more, which I already know but can't seem to accomplish.

Along with all the other stuff I know I should be doing but can't seem to accomplish. Which is why I'll probably be getting the old heave, ho any day now.

Ava said the other day in regards to her fear of getting something messy on her homework,
"If I got this messed up, then my teacher would be so mad at me. I'd get fired. I'd get fired and I'd have to get a new job, wouldn't I, Mom?"

You and me both, Baby.

But First There Was Halloween

We closed on Friday October 29. Max's 1 year birthday.



We haven't celebrated yet but maybe this weekend. Or next. Or the one after that.



The moving truck was scheduled for Monday the 1st. So in the meantime we had our Halloween festivities. Namely a trunk or treat on Friday and the "Monster Mile" put on by my parent's neighborhood on Saturday.

Friday morning I was in Walmart trying to be inspired (is that an oxymoron?) Ava couldn't choose what she wanted to be and Luke had requested to be Wall-E. Max had big plans to be a baby.

I decided that Ava could easily be Rapunzel with one of the dresses I had already picked up and a yarn wig I'd seen how to make in Family Fun magazine.

And while I was browsing for Wall-E robot accessories, Dan called me with a costume change. Luke didn't want to be Wall-E anymore.

He wanted to be a fan.

So after pulling the brainpower of friends and family, I finally set to dissembling an old box fan my parents were willing to donate to the cause.

Luke wasn't actually a fan, but he did get to wear one, which to him was just as good.


I was proud of myself for taking it all apart and then using a tinker toy, a sink strainer, and some zip ties, I managed to attach it to a backpack and still make it able to spin.



Once I was done with that I only had to attach thousands of strands of yarn to some pantyhose.




I finished in the nick of time!

We were running back and forth to the car, buckling kids, grabbing candy bags, making bottles, retrieving the pacifiers, and it was during one of those passes that I stepped off the edge of the sidewalk like a big klutz in flip flops and sprained my ankle.

Despite having done that so many times in my life, I was still shocked by the pain. We were cutting it close as it was, so Dan and the kids dropped me off at an emergency center, for x-rays, just in case. Then they went on their way to the trunk or treat and the timing worked out quite well for them to pick me up on their way home.

I was sad to miss the evening but I did get to sit in a bed, by myself for a whole hour and 10 minutes and watch HGTV, which after the past few weeks really felt like heaven. Even with a throbbing ankle.

My ankle was not broken and even felt better than I expected the next day. With a gimpy, splinty limp I was glad to accompany the family on the Monster Mile.





This time I got to see the kids and others reactions to their costumes. Which for Luke were pretty interesting. I guess you'd have to know him to get it.

My favorite moment of the night was when I asked the kids to come over for a picture.

I said, "Say, Trick or Treat" which they did.



Then I said it again. Only this time, Luke got all silly and while he jumped in the air and landed with his backside poking towards me he said,

"Say...Fan!!"

Halfway House

So we are out of one home but not yet into the other. We're staying at my parents house here in Dallas and hoping to close on our new one on Friday.

It has been so nice not to have to stay in a hotel, but it also kind of feels like one of our usual visits. Not like we actually live in this city now.

My parents have been out of town since before we got up here, so it has been kind of lonely. I can't wait until they get back. I can't wait until we move into the new house.

The week without Dan was hard. Really hard actually. I was doing fine until Max got sick. Then it all started running together, with the packing and loading and I was going back and forth to the doctors office. The packers were so good to me and I think they mostly just felt bad. And as usual my pediatrician was so accomodating. Unfortunately Max is still wheezing so I think I'll end up at the urgent care tonight. Ava had never really recovered from her ear infections and cough at the beginning of the month so she was in and out of fever and generally not feeling well, too.

But as they were closing the doors to the truck on Friday afternoon while I walked to the bus stop, I said to myself, "I did it! I did it!" And then I mentally corrected myself to "We did it! We did it" because if it weren't for a couple of wonderful, wonderful friends who took my kids, brought me food, and helped me clean out my fridge at midnight, I would not have been able to do it. So to you ladies, I owe you much and miss you even more!

Ava spent that afternoon on the floor in our empty house with a major fever. Dan finally got back that evening and we spent a surprisingly pleasant night at a hotel. The next morning things took a turn for the worse when Ava was still sick, tired, and crazy mean. We took Sophie to an animal shelter and we said goodbye to our home. We stopped by a birthday party and said goodbye to friends.

And then we hit the road. It was a crappy drive and we looked at each other and agreed that we would not miss the stretch of highway between Houston and Dallas.

About 3/4 of the way there Max would not stop crying. And then the realization hit me just about the same time as the smell, that in all of the commotion of the day we had not changed Max's diaper since 7:30 that morning. That was a nearly 8 hour diaper topped off with diahrea. His entire car seat was soaked along with his clothes.

Our car was so randomly packed I just felt lucky to be able to retireive an old towel that had gotten left behind from the movers. But as I tried to lay it under Max since he had no clothes, I realized that I was trying to protect him with a towel that the cat had apparently peed on the night before. And that's when I just had to laugh. We blame stress for the entire situation.

I took Ava to the urgent care on Monday and she got some new antibiotics for her infected ears and some steriods for her breathing.

Ava started kindergarten again on Tuesday and it is "awesome!" according to her. And according to me that is also "awesome!"

The school feels like a whole different shebang, though. Mostly just because of the size difference. Instead of 12 kindergarten classes there are 4. Our old school was run like a well oiled machine. You drove on certain streets, waited in certain areas. Everything was organized, designated, reserved, planned, and coordinated. Because an enrollment of 1300 students pretty much requires it. And to their credit, it all ran very smoothly and was a great school.

Here, if your student forgets their lunch you can leave it on a desk right inside the front doors and you can walk right up to the door and pick your child up after school because they just let them out. Seems kind of like how I remember school being, but from where we just came from it seems foreign.

But mostly I am just glad that Ava is loving it.

I am loving having only one child in diapers. It feels like such a luxury! Once we wean Max from formula in a few weeks then we will be majorly saving at the grocery store too. Diapers and formula was adding on a good $120 a month to our bill.

Luke is pretty proud of himself too.

Max will be one year old on Friday. I have no idea where the last 12 months have gone. At least he is too little to know that by the time we get around to celebrating it he will probably be one and a half!

Day 2...

...Done!

The kids are in bed. Ava finally quit talking to me about possible scenarios in which I go to jail. Real tears were shed, despite my insistence that I will not be going to jail anytime soon. The whole thing just reminded me of when I was 5 and cried during Miracle on 34th Street when Santa went to jail.

Anyways, I'm not going to jail.

Dan left on Sunday for Dallas to start the new job. And from his report it was a good first day and he thinks he will like it. The commute was surprisingly better than expected.

One thing is for sure though, I am supposed to be wherever Dan is. And since Dan is not in Houston and I am, I am feeling unsettled. I cried so many times just in dreaded anticipation of this time, but so far things have been okay. I'm just taking it one day at a time.

Dan reminded me that he did this single parent thing not too long ago for 6 days while I went to my sisters house. That is true and it has given me hope that I can do it as well. I mean, I know we'll all be alive when this is over and hopefully I will not be in jail. But I am feeling a lot of stress right now, knowing that by the end of this week our life will be on a big truck headed out of town.

And once all the gory details are resolved Dan will fly back into town. It's the gory details that scare me.

And one more thing, I went crazy cleaning and taking pictures of our house since it went on the market last week. And I am feeling pretty frustrated that those pictures have yet to show up on the mls listing of our house.

We aren't really hoping to sell it ourselves but I hate the feeling that I did all of it for nothing. So here they are.

You wanna buy our house? We'll give you a great deal!

Oh Lukey!

Since Grandma and Grandpa Colton are making some changes in their home, they found they had an excess of fan catalogs. They knew just what to do with them, too.

A box came in the mail a few weeks ago. A box! Full of Fan Books!



(At this point you may be asking yourself, does this boy always have a messy face and need a haircut? The answer is yes. )

Luke was ecstatic. He tried to eat dinner, but could only get down a few bites before he was back on the floor perusing his new treasures.


Luckily he gave up after a few attempts at carrying all 4 books around at once. And now instead of one fan book, he sleeps with a library of them.

I took him to the doctor for his 3 year well-check today. I'm only 3.5 months behind schedule.

Homeboy weighs 41 lbs. and is 43" tall.

That is the height of an average 5 year old. He's in the 97 and 99 percentiles, respectively.

For the first time they used some computer program to predict his height based on Dan and my heights', which came out to be 6'2". I think that sounds great but it is just so weird to imagine him being grown up. Who knows how accurate that thing is, but I think it's safe to say that someday I will be looking up to him.

Max still bugs the pieces out of him but I was feeling encouraged because there have been times where the yelling and screaming have ceased and not wanting to ruin the moment, I tried to steer clear of them. Surely the absence of both their bodies and the yelling can only mean they are getting along, right?

Or it could mean that they have discovered how to make mischief together. Too bad Luke only wants to play with Max if it means making some kind of mess.


Who am I to discourage their bonding?


Well after the third roll on the third day I'd had enough. There will be no more shredded toilet paper on my watch. I have learned, silence is not good.

Luke is doing great with going on the potty. One of the big differences between training him and Ava, since she was just 2, is that he really doesn't go that often in the day. There is not the constant running back and forth and asking every 15 minutes.

We're still working on the pooping portion but I will spare you the details for now.

He is really proud of himself and has been so much happier this past little while.

He's been asking a lot lately if I want to snuggle with him. Only it sounds so much cuter than that. More like,

"You wanna snuggle me, Mama?"


Don't mind if I do!