Getting ready for the roadtrip...

So, why am I on here posting a new blog entry when I should be packing feverishly to make sure everyone has all that they need for our road trip to see Jon's parents? Call it procrastination...it's my weakness! I figured I hadn't posted an entry in a while, so why not now? The days since my last entry have proved to be pretty uneventful, which is a good thing these days. We're looking forward to going down to the ranch in Kerrville and hanging out with Jon's family, eating a lot of food, and watching some UT football. I'm sure there will be more to report once we get back. Road trips always make for some interesting incidents when you travel with a two-year old.

One funny thing that Grayson has been doing lately is staying up waaaaaaaay past his bedtime after it's supposed to be lights out. We really have no idea what time he actually goes to sleep. We'll go up and check on him before we go to bed and his little lamp on his nightstand will be on and his books scaterred around him in the bed. I guess we should go and check on him like 10 minutes after putting him to bed to make sure we enforce lights out? He started doing the same thing at naptime today, too, so he's really not getting the sleep he should be getting. Who knew that 2-year olds could be so sneaky?

Happy Turkey Day to everyone! More posts to come...

The Dilemma

Lately, Grayson has been pushing and "beating up" on Conley a little more than usual. Most of the time, I don't actually catch him in the act; he always seems to wait until I have my backed turned before he initiates contact. But for the times when I do catch him in action, he gets put in time out as a consequence. For all of the other times, the scenario ususally goes something like this - Conley starts screaming, I run over to see what happened, I question Grayson, and with some prodding he will ususally tell me that he either hit Conley, took a toy away from Conley, or that he pushed Conley. Now here's the dilemma...he knows that he gets put in timeout for doing those things to Conley. But, when I ask him and he tells me the truth about what he did, do I still put him in time out? We want to encourage him to tell us the truth, but soon he will start to figure out that when he tells us what he did to Conley, he gets in trouble. Ahhh, so there's the rub! I feel he should be in timeout still, since he knows that those things are not allowed, but I hate the thought of the timeout discouraging his telling of the truth. What would you do?

Diarrhea

Well, this fabulous word seems to be the latest favorite of Grayson's since "Uncle" Scotty sang him a few verses of the Diarrhea song. Jon and I were sitting at the dinner table finishing our meal when our attention turned to Grayson. He was playing with his cars on our big ottoman and saying, "Diarrhea, , FORWARD!....Diarrhea, , BACKWARD!" It's funny, but we need to come up with a new favorite word, and fast! He just randomly blurts out "diarrhea" around the house and when we're out and about, which is just a little embarrasing.

The Rock Star and His Future Wife

Our friend, Natalie took some pics on Halloween during our post trick-or-treating stop over at their house. Her little girl, Claire, is just as cute as a button...she's so cute I can't even stand it. Claire calls Grayson her "boyfriend", so Natalie and I have decided that they are going to marry each other when they get older.

Grayson gets down with Cole's guitar and cowboy hat - a rock star in the making?











Grayson gives Claire a hug











Grayson's just chillin' with his girl and his juice











Claire plants a big one on Grayson...picture this 20 years later with a beer instead of juice!

Once Bitten

When I went to pick Grayson up from school today, Miss Tonya, one of Grayson's teachers, whispered to me that she needed to speak with me. We went inside the classroom while Grayson was getting his diaper changed and Miss Tonya proceeded to tell me that Grayson was bitten by one of his classmates today. She said that it wasn't serious, or they would have called me, but that they had to file an "incident" report. Per the school's policy, Miss Tonya wasn't able to tell me who bit Grayson, but she told me that if Iasked Grayson, he would tell me who did it. Surprisingly, I wasn't too worried about it. Is that weird? I know some moms that would be like a pit bull unleashed if that had happened to their kid. I felt that one, it wasn't serious, and two, these kids are little and still learning and it's bound to happen. It is unfortunate that it happened to Grayson....my sweet little boy is more sensitive than most and from my last post, you know that he cries about almost everything these days. So after my discussion with Miss Tonya, we left and were walking out to the car and Ranger and his mom came up to us. She told me that Ranger had just told her that he had bit Grayson...the same Ranger whose birthday party we just went to yesterday. She was very apologetic and explained that Ranger was going through some sort of phase right now with the biting. Apparently he's bitten his baby sister twice already. I told her not to worry about it and that Grayson was fine. But, you can bet that if he continues to bite and bites only Grayson and not anyone else, the pit bull momma will be coming out!!

The Birthday Party Eruptions

Today we went to a birthday party for one of Grayson's classmates at school, Ranger. The birthday party was held at The Zone in McKinney, which Grayson loves because of the big bounce houses there. All was great and Grayson was having a great time up until it was time to eat and have cake. Pizza was served and Grayson took one bite and immediately started to cry. This is what he does when something is too hot....however, Grayson's idea of too hot and our idea of too hot is not the same. Something can be barely lukewarm and he thinks it's too hot. So this cry is not just a little whimper cry, it's an all-out screaming cry and everyone is looking at us like "what is going on with them?" So I finally calm him down, he eats some pizza, and then the cupcakes come out. Grayson devours his cupcake (or should I say, the icing) with the voracity of a starving hyena and then proceeds to tell me that he wants another one. As I try to explain to him that everyone only gets one cupcake, eruption #2 comes. Like seriously, the way he was crying, you would have thought I was beating this kid or something! Keep in mind that this whole time, Conley is strapped to the front of my body in the Baby Bjorn...fun times! So I finally calm Grayson down again and then Ranger starts to open his gifts. Well, Grayson wants to open a present, too! Of course! Why wouldn't he? BUT, as I explain to him that those are Ranger's presents because it's his birthday, the screaming begins again. Really, you ask? YES - really! By this time, I was done. I took Grayson out in the hallway and sat him down on the ground againt the wall. I told him that he could stop crying and go back inside and play, or we could go home. He continued to cry for a few minutes and then said he wanted to go play. So we went back inside and he played for a few more minutes. During this time, Conley was getting increasingly agitated and tired, so now he was starting to freak out on me. This was our queue to leave. I bet you can't guess what happened when I told Grayson it was time for us to go? HA! The worst part is, these crying fits are happening with increasing frequency these days and it's really irritating. Like, is Grayson going to be that kid at school that gets picked on because he's a little cry-baby? Seriously, this kid will start screaming over the tiniest little thing and sometimes this goes on ALLLLLL day long. By the time Jon gets home, I am just done. So after a parental discussion, our new game plan is to not acknowledge or give him attention when he does this, unless he's injured, of course, or something serious has happened. To be continued...

Six Years and Counting...

Today is our six year anniversary! And we've been together for ten! It seems to have gone by in a blink. We had a huge weekend planned...the kids went to Mimi and Grandpa's house, we got a hotel room and had plans for a nice dinner. Well, our romantic weekend was quickly derailed by a nice stomach bug that I seem to have caught. Ugh. Really? The ONE weekend when we don't have the kids and we spend a lot of money on a nice hotel? Grrrr! I did manage to make it through dinner by popping a ton of Pepto. We ended up going back to our room and watching UT lose the big game in the last seconds while I willed my stomach to make itself better. A big downer all the way around. At least we got to sleep in, I guess. Better luck next year.