Conversations with Preston

Preston has reached a point where he's talking all of the time, and it's so fun to hear what is going on in his little brain. I'm often tempted to post a Facebook status or tweet whenever he says something cute, but I try to keep from being that person on social media (all bets are off on my Instagram, though). So I thought I'd start a little series on conversations with Preston so I can share them and have them stored away to look back on some day.

Playing with his singing steering wheel:
Preston: "Ooh ooh! We here!"
Me: "Where are you going?"
Preston: "Walmart!"
Me: "What are you going to get?"
Preston: "Gross-ies (groceries) … and cookies!"

When we leave the house in Scott's car:
Preston: "Ready! We goin'! Bye, Mommy's car!"

Overheard on the baby monitor one morning, talking about his blanket bear:
"Mommy's bear? Nooo! Daddy's bear? Nooo! Coco's bear? Nooo! Pops' bear? Nooo!" (This went on in loop for a while.)

After splashing water on the floor:
Preston: "Eww! Mess!"
Me: "Who made that mess?"
Preston: "Pops!"

While Scott and I were getting ready:
Preston to Scott, who wasn't wearing a shirt: "Daddy! Shirt!"
Scott: "You want me to wear a shirt?"
Preston: "Uh-huh, myson (bison) shirt!"

After he'd thrown a fit getting out of the bathtub and I told him to use his words when he's upset:
Me: "OK, so why did you get so mad?"
Preston: "(whining) Frustrated!" Then he collapsed onto my shoulder.

When Scott went to get him out of bed:
Scott: "Preston, where's Mommy?"
Preston: "Doing dishes."

Sitting at the table:
Preston: "Hmmmm…"
Me: "What are you doing?"
Preston: "Finking (Thinking)," and taps on his chin with his spoon.

Looking at a J.Crew catalog:
Preston: "Oh, Mommy! (pointing to model on the front) Dress, Mommy! Mommy's cute! Cute Mommy!" (Nothing makes a five-month pregnant lady feel better than being mistaken for a model — and being cute too!)

P.S. I took these pictures the other night while we were all outside. They feature Preston's two favorite things — golf and cold water. He literally requests "Cold water!!" every night in the bathtub and was happy to find it can come from the hose, too.

My favorite Netflix documentaries

We've reached that point in the summer where all of your old favorite shows are in reruns, you've already watched this week's "Bachelorette," and the rain messed up your recording of "Halt and Catch Fire." OK, so all of that may just be me, but I think we can agree that there's not a whole lot to watch during the summer. Sure, that probably means you should be outside catching lightening bugs, reading a book, or eating dinner with friends late into the evening, but when you love TV like I do, a DirecTV guide full of "American Ninja Warrior" and "Shark Tank" is truly upsetting. #couchpotatoproblems

This is where Netflix comes to the rescue. Sure, they've got great series you can binge on to get you caught up for the fall (we tried starting "Call the Midwife," but after one episode I decided I was too hormonally imbalanced to handle it right now), but lately Scott and I have gotten into some of the documentaries they offer. 

"The Short Game"

This movie focuses on the best young golfers in the world who are competing in North Carolina to be the world champion and hope to be the next big golfer — once they get a later bedtime, of course. Not only are these nine kids the movie follows adorable, but they are incredible golfers. I loved watching their determination and persistence in practicing and improving their golf game right alongside their goofy, 7-year-old ways. The movie took me through the whole range of emotions, from joy when they succeeded to heartbreak when they didn't do as well as they hoped. 

"Muscle Shoals"

This documentary tells the story of Rick Hall who founded FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama.  In his studio, he developed a signature sound that made FAME a popular place to record for many artists and helped launch some big name artists and hit songs. It's full of great music and some surprising stories — like how Aretha Franklin was dropped by her original record label because she wasn't selling, only to be re-signed by another and take a trip to Muscle Shoals, which helped propel her to the star she is today. 

"Undefeated"

Filmed at a high school in Memphis, this movie tells the story of the Manassas Tigers football team as they attempt a winning season after years of losing. They're turned around by their head coach, who teaches them character and how to excel on and off the field. It won the Academy Award for Best Documentary in 2012. We found about about this movie because one of the students Scott was recruiting was actually part of the team when it was filmed. Now he gets to put "featured in an Academy Award winning film" on his resume for life. If you love heartwarming sports movies about a rag-tag team who comes together under the leadership of their coach, then you'll love this one!

"Mitt"

"I have looked, by the way, at what happens to anybody in this country who loses as the nominee of their party. They become a loser for life, all right? That's it. It’s over." That's one of the first things you hear from Republican presidential nominee hopeful Mitt Romney in a 2007 fundraiser. That idea sets the tone for the documentary since we, the audience, know his ultimate fate in losing the nomination to John McCain in that election and going on to lose the presidency to Barak Obama four years later. It provides an interesting personal look into Romney's life, making him seem less robotic than what many voters saw on the campaign trail. It was a great look behind the scenes, and I especially enjoyed seeing his family's perspective, since I never thought much about the toll the process of his running for president must have on them.

So, there you have it. What are you watching this summer? Or are you one of those "we don't even own a TV" types? If so, to quote Joey from "Friends," "What does all of your furniture point at?"

The mom who knew too much

Scott and I met up with my parents in Memphis over Memorial Day weekend. We found a little park for Preston to play on before we went to dinner, so my mom and I sat watching Scott and my dad show Preston how to go down the tube slide. While I watched Preston cross a bouncing bridge and peer down the slide, I asked my mom, "How did you ever let us play on a playground? That side is wide open for kids to get to the monkey bars, and it's a three-foot drop down! And we used to climb along the tops of the bars and jump off!" "There was a lot of gasping and jumping on my part," she said. "But you were always OK."

While it seems impossible now, at some point Preston will be climbing and leaping and swinging from those bars all on his own, like my sister and I and millions of children before us, and he'll get blisters or scrapes or fall and get the breath knocked out of him, like my sister and I and millions of children before us. And he'll be OK — like my sister and I and millions of children before us.

And those aren't even the scariest things he'll do in his lifetime.

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about the balance between protecting my children and teaching them independence. I keep dwelling on a scene from "Full House" (that beacon of parental wisdom) where Uncle Jesse and Aunt Becky are at odds with each other about which parenting technique is better for their twin boys. They flash forward to the future, and one — influenced by Becky — is a whiney, teenage nerd who still needs cornstarch sprinkled in his pants for diaper rash while the other — lead by Jesse — has multiple tattoos and is too wild to control. While I know there's an in between that is better, sometimes I prefer the idea of the teenage nerd with corn starch in his pants. At least I'd know he's not getting into trouble!

All this thinking was spurred on further by this article I read on Salon.com. The title, "The day I left my son in the car," had me sickeningly panicked from the beginning, afraid something terrible happened to her son. But it didn't. The four-year-old wanted to stay in the car and play a game on the iPad while she made a quick run into the store. It was an overcast, 50 degree day; she cracked the windows and locked the car and was in and out in less than five minutes. But a bystander saw her leave her son and reported her to the police. Now she was faced with a warrant for her arrest and a trial for endangering her son.

The main thought presented was that society has moved into a school of thought where children are completely unsafe when not under constant parental supervision and how that way of thinking is unfounded. How many times as kids were we left in the car and never thought about all of the ills that could befall? How many times were we free to roam the neighborhood or parks on our own? But now that seems completely reckless. The author speaks with a lady who points out that the most dangerous thing she did was not leaving her child in the car but putting him in the car at all — as more children die in wrecks than in parked cars. But we hear the bad, the one in a million stories, and we as parents feel that we must protect our children from everything. We know too much.

Anything could happen is a common refrain voiced by such parents. And I know what they mean. We’ve seen the television movies about abducted children. We’ve heard the heart-rending stories of kids injured in carjackings, or forgotten in sweltering cars. And once you imagine something, imagine what it must have been like for that parent or child who suffered it, it’s not a great leap to imagine it happening to you or your child, and then, if you’re like most parents, you will do anything in your power to prevent it. It’s not a matter of likelihood or statistical significance, but the terrible power of our imagination.

That hit home with me in a powerful way — because I completely get that. Stories about people who fall, break their nose, and the bone shard penetrates their brain race to the forefront of my mind when I see Preston running with reckless abandon. Stories like Natasha Richardson's fall on the ski slopes and undiagnosed concussion that lead to her death echo alongside the thud of Preston's head when he knocks it on the bath tub faucet. Snake bites, West Nile Virus, food-born illness, broken bones, car wrecks, abductions, drowning … I've thought long, hard and fitfully about them all, not to mention all of the school shootings and other general crazies out there. Forget the nerdy, corn starched teen — Preston's going to be a bubble boy at this rate.

My friend Hannah posted about dropping off her eldest at camp. She mentioned one girl had fallen on day one and broken her leg. "Sooo sad! Poor girl. And poor parents of all children, having to learn to let our kids spread their wings and explore and break bones," she wrote. And there it was: Not only is it important for children to learn independence, but it's important for their parents to learn to accept that independence and allow it to happen. I feel like I could break out into hives when I think about Preston going to school, being around kids I don't know with a teacher I don't know making decisions without my supervision. But I have to trust in the kid I've raised that he won't do anything truly stupid and that, if he does, one part of learning comes from acquiring bruises, broken bones, broken hearts and other uncomfortable consequences. I can impart what wisdom I have, but another big part of children's learning comes from experiences all their own.

It's a difficult thing to learn … that "Let It Go" is more than a catchy, now overplayed song from a Disney movie.

It's a girl!

Yesterday, Scott and I got to see sweet baby #2 when I went for my second ultrasound. It's amazing how babies go from little beans at nine weeks to fully looking like a human at 18 weeks. After marveling at the baby's profile, tiny fingers and froggy legs, the ultrasound nurse told us that baby was a girl. While part of me was surprised (I just knew it was a boy), the other part of me felt like she was telling me something I already knew.

When we found out Preston's gender, I had been certain he was a girl, so in my mind being certain it was a boy this time around just meant we were getting a girl. Also, Preston had been telling us it was going to be a baby sister for a couple of months already, and he's a pretty smart kid.

It was fun to see the already apparent differences in my two children at this stage during my ultrasound. With Preston, he never really moved much or seemed bothered by the ultrasound wand invading his space. There were a couple of times after an ultrasound where I wondered if Preston could actually move his legs because he kicked around so little in those brief moments where we could watch him on a screen. He was always a chilled, laid back baby on the inside and continues to be one (for the most part) on the outside.

Baby girl, on the other hand — not so much. From the minute the ultrasound wand was pressed against my stomach, you could tell she did not enjoy having her space invaded. She kicked and wiggled, trying to get away as best she could. I've noticed that the best way to feel her kick is to curl my legs up in front of me to give her a little less room. It gets her stirred up every time. Looks like we need to be ready for a girl who needs her own space.

Prior to this ultrasound, Scott and I had decided not to do too much planning until we knew the gender. We got to enjoy a nice little stretch of expecting a baby while not fussing with the logistics too much. Now, it makes the reality of everything sink in a little more. Baby sister will be here in four and a half months! We've got to start making decisions — the biggest one at the moment being what we'll call her.

While baby now has a pronoun, she doesn't have a proper noun. Girls' names seem to be much harder to decide on than boys names for me. Scott and I spent the majority of the time batting names back and forth while waiting for the doctor yesterday. Every name was either connected to a person one of us had a bad memory of, sounded like we were trying too hard, or just wasn't a good name. The naming conundrum always brings me back to this "Friends" scene.

So, for now, we'll start pulling the newborn stuff out of storage while running through ever-growing lists of girl names. Too bad Vito is a boy's name.

Image via Pixels.com

What to do next?

Every so often I get blogger's block and can't think of anything to write. I get to a point where I feel like people can only read so much about my life before they get bored. Sure, I have some drafts of posts that I need to finish (an update on Preston and his feeding therapy, some of my summer favorites), but I just haven't felt pushed to complete them. I've sat down to try to write something several times over the past two weeks, but I've come up empty. So, I thought I'd turn to you for some ideas!

In thinking about what I'd like to write about, I kept going back to the movie "Julie & Julia." The main character cooked her way through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking in a year. I think I'd like to do something like that. Whisking and basting my way through Child's monumental tome might be a little more than I can manage (plus, you know, it's been done), but the idea of working through something and completing little challenges like that seems fun.

I realize that there are some big changes coming up in the next five months and spare time to complete an ongoing task like this may disappear, so I'm not going to put a tight time constraint on it, but I would like to have it to go back to when I'm needing something to do for me.

So, my question is this: What should I do? It could be cooking through a cookbook (maybe one centered on budget-friendly dinners — something I'm always needing more of) or working through a self-help book (I have a book called 52 Ways to Wow Your Husband that has been sitting, unread, on my Kindle for a while), learning something new through a how-to book, or attempting 50 Pinterest pins. I'm open to anything you might suggest! Let me know your ideas in the comments or elsewhere, and I'll go from there.

Side note: These pictures are from our trip to Memphis this past weekend and have absolutely nothing to do with the post. I just wanted to share them!

Preston turns two, part 2

I guess when you turn two, you have to have two parties to make it official. That's at least how Preston celebrated turning the big two with his second party this past weekend. We (obviously) went with a Cookie Monster theme, Preston's favorite among the Sesame Street gang. This made it extremely easy to decorate for. We didn't buy any of the Cookie Monsters for the party. I just grabbed them from the toy bins while Preston was napping before the party. We even had the glass milk jug sitting around, and Scott filled it up with water and a little acrylic white paint to look like milk. I got the rest of the decorations from Oriental Trading, which I had heard of but never ordered from. Afterward, though, I wondered why I hadn't used them sooner. I got plates, napkins, bunting, paper straws and paper snack cups for $17! Super easy and affordable — just like I like it.

Preston's grandma made his Cookie Monster shirt and a local bakery made the cupcakes and cookies. I'm not good under pressure, so I can't bake or even think about baking the birthday cake without feeling incredibly anxious. So I was glad to give that task to someone else. They turned out much cuter that way.

All of that paled in Preston's eyes to the balloons that were floating in the kitchen when he woke up from his nap. I think we could get him a balloon next year and he'd be pleased as punch.

It was a simple party but definitely a good one. There's nothing that warms my heart more than celebrating this sweet, goofy little boy with the people who love him as much as we do. That's reason enough to have two birthday parties!

Lots to celebrate

Birthdays, hoodings, graduations — oh my! We had a very busy couple of days this past weekend as we traveled to Nashville to celebrate my sister's graduation from pharmacy school as well as Preston's second birthday, which means we not only had a lot to celebrate, but also a lot to photograph, so please excuse the overabundance of pictures.

On Friday, after we had gone to Courtney's hooding ceremony and Preston had taken a very lengthy nap, we celebrated our boy turning two (even though it feels like we just brought him home). He woke up to find a giant Elmo balloon waiting for him, and I'm pretty sure he would've been happy with just that. But he also got a couple of things from my parents and sister. He was elated when he opened the little computer my parents got him, but the biggest hit was probably his own little set of golf clubs. When Mom brought them out, he shouted, "Golf!" and the rest of the afternoon was spent hitting and chasing the plastic golfballs all over the house.

After dinner, it was time for cake — a super blue Cookie Monster cake to be exact — and Bubble Guppies masks. The cake left us all extremely blue in the mouth region, so it was best that it was shared among family only. I was very proud of Preston for actually taking a bite of the cake, even though I think the blue icing frightened him a bit. It's a huge step from where he was this time last year.

Saturday was graduation day, and in addition to the ceremony itself, Mom and Dad had planned a party at their house afterward with most of our family and friends coming for both. We had quite the cheering section for Courtney as she crossed the stage. We were just a few rows back from where she crossed to return to her seat. When Preston saw her, he shouted, "Hi, Coco! I watched you on the steps!" Since most of the arena was quiet so that each person's name could be heard when called, he was heard by everyone in our general area and got a laugh out of them.

Let me just take a minute to brag on my sister. While she was in school these past four years working to get to this point, she's really been working much longer than just her time in pharmacy school. She has been determined to do her best for as long as I've known her, and all of that determination paid off. I'm so proud of my sister, Dr. Courtney Harris.

Back at my parents' house, we ate lunch and celebrated the new doctor and new two year old. Courtney's cake congratulated her "Breaking Bad" style. After lunch, Everyone ended up outside while Preston and others tested out his collection of bubbles that my grandmother gave him for his birthday. We were all a little pollen- and bubble solution-covered when we came back inside.

It was wonderful to spend time with family and celebrate these two occasions!

It was even better to take a nap afterward.