Weren’t we just moving you into a big boy bed?
and now.
You’re growing, changing, moving faster than my heart.

Ready.

(wait, let me get my camera)

Set

(hold on, let me change my settings)

Be.  Still.  My.  Heart.

No Training Wheels

Bike vs. Neighbor’s Brush Guard aka Thank God For Helmets

Even at 5, you show the man you will become.

Even while the tears are streaming down your face, you get back on that bike with Daddy’s strong hands steadying you and you ride one more time, just to prove that you can.

Be Still My Heart

In case you need a grin today – Here’s Monkey’s little Hip Hop performance from his school’s Holiday Extravaganza this past weekend.

(He’s the one in blue and grey – my husband was the cameraman)

Peace Out, Yo!

Five years ago – 9:36 PM I sat in a hospital room waiting on your dad to get back with some food.

I sat in a hospital bed with my fingers tracing lazy circles over my stomach, over you.  I tickled and pushed and watched you push back.  I talked to you and dreamed of you. I shared dreams and hopes and wishes with you, whispering and imagining.

12:26 PM on September 20th, 2006 – our family became complete.

 Sept 20th, 2006 at about 3:26 PM

The moment you were in my arms, I knew - you were what we’d been waiting for.  Our family was complete, my heart full, every piece in place.

September 30th, 2006 – 10 Days Old. Our Family

You bring such joy to our lives

(age 3)

you make us laugh

You take my breath away

You scare the hell out of us

You are fearless

You are loving

You are a gift.

You’re a devilishly brilliant perfect combination of your Daddy and Me and you’re designed to enchant us and drive us bananas.

You’re sweet and cuddly and snarly and prickly.

You have the biggest heart and the attitude to match it.

You give hugs and kisses as freely as you climb the walls of our house and send my heart racing.

Every. single. one of your joys, I feel in my soul.

Every. single. pain, bump, bruise, scar, knock and heartache (Of which you are the king of all) I feel times 1,000.

I love you so very much.

We. Love you So Very Much

Happy 5th Birthday, Monkey.  I can’t wait to see what this year brings.

4 year old Monkey to his 7 year old Sister:

“Wouldn’t it be AWESOME if there were Pop Rocks seeds and we could GROW our own Pop Rocks plants!”

Just yes son — YES.

linked to Angry Julie

Hey Pitcher, Look at Me

I’m a Monkey in a Tree

It’s kickball time here in Corpus again and that means it’s time for Monkey’s favorite cheer/chant to weasel its way back into our lives.

He walks around monk style chanting it all the time. le sigh

Today, while climbing this tree, he was sing song-ing it under his breath again.

My kid cracks me up.

Yes, it’s another Carnival video   This is Monkey and another little boy from the Camp Carnival 2-5 group dancing at the Talent Show.

Monkey would be the kid in the green Beatles shirt and the dark jeans and ever present boots.

Enjoy

Who Let The Monkey Out?

Tomorrow, they meet and it will be Epic.

Photo by Lotus, Braden imitating Monkey

It’s a mere blip and an eternity.

Four years ago, right now.. 11:04 PM September 19th, 2006 I was flirting with sleep.

We admitted ourselves (me) to the L&D unit to be induced.

Pitocin on board, I sent your dad to Wendy’s because I was starvin’ and that sounded sooo good.  (silly me, I assumed that two labors would be the same.. pitocin, wait, sleep, wait, epidural that didn’t work, pain. people, pain. more people. pain. push. pain. push. pain. push. pain. messy. baby. pain OHMYGOODGIDDYAUNTIMAMOM)

Your Dad came back with Wendy’s and I was havin’ full on painful contractions and nausea.. the nurse rushed in, ripped out the lovely little inducer and I lapsed into a fitful french fry scented sleep.

Fast Forward 12 hours.

It’s about 12:00 Noon on September 20, 2006 and I tell your Bebe, Dad and “Aunt” Shannon that we’ll have a baby in less than 30 minutes and they all scoff at me. 
(lesson: DO NOT doubt the laboring mother)

Also, if epidural number one with baby number one doesn’t work, chances are epidural number 2 with baby number 2 who’s damned and determined to come as fast as possible is not going to work either.

12:24.. doctor finally shows up.

12:26.. you show up after two pushes

bloody, bruised, swollen and not really breathing.

they smack you, you squeal.. I get you on my breast for a brief moment, we connect.

You disappear for 3 hours because of miscommunications, no telephone in my room and you being in the NICU for monitoring and more… I wish I knew where those pictures were.

Finally, you were in my arms

This is you:  Sept 20th, 2006 at about 3:26 PM

(3 hours after you were born)

You changed everything.

A feeling of completeness swept through me the moment you were born.  I didn’t even realize that our family wasn’t complete, and then there you were. You completed us.

Monkey, I love you so much

You bring such joy to our lives

you make us laugh

You take my breath away

You scare the hell out of us

and I am grateful for every. single. moment.

You are a gift.

You’re a devilishly brilliant perfect combination of your Daddy and Me and you’re designed to enchant us and drive us bananas.

You’re sweet and cuddly and snarly and prickly.

You have the biggest heart and the attitude to match it.

You give hugs and kisses as freely as you climb the walls of our house and send my heartbeat soaring.

Every. single. one of your joys, I feel in my soul.

Every. single. pain, bump, bruise, scar, knock and heartache (0f which you are the king of all) I feel times 1,000.

I love you so very much.
I hope your fourth year is an amazing one:  I hope that it’s full of love and laughter and life and joy and friendships and surprise and adventure and excitement and beauty and family and possibility.

I feel as if I’ve written this post before. OH because I HAVE, just with a different child.

This afternoon I was on the phone with a friend talking about kids, photography, football, breast cancer… you know, the normal stuff when I hear:

“THWACKTHUDCRASH” followed by the scream.

If you’re really lucky, you’ll never hear it.

It’s that scream that reaches down into the marrow of your bones and chills you from the inside out.  The scream that sends every mom-sense you have into overload.

Into the phone, I said/hollered/scrambled; “I have to go” and threw it down onto the couch.

I was greeted with a screaming Monkey rubbing the back of his head and he was oddly covered in red.

It took a nanosecond that felt like a minute for my brain to register that the red was blood and his hand was smearing it from the back of his head to the top and back down again and that more was running down his back.

I snatched him up and ran with him in my arms to the bathroom

Where I lay him down face first, grabbed a towel, applied pressure to the blood, oh.my.good.giddy.aunt. the blood. the pulsing, flowing, flowing, gushing, blood pouring out of my son’s head. (I’m the one who is ALWAYS calm when there’s blood or someone’s injured, this time… I wavered really close to panic)

I wrapped him in an arm, pressed the towel to his head with the other and had my daughter call my husband.

“Come home NOW. Monkey split his head open and it’s a gaping wound and there’s so much blood, and it’s his head and come. home. now.”

My amazing 6 yo grabbed my purse, shut the front door and helped me get Monkey into his car seat. “Do NOT move. Keep your head pressed against the towel and don’t move”

Bless his sweet heart, he didn’t.

First, the closest medical place: a minor emergency clinic. Where I was told; without them even looking at him: “we can’t help you. go to a real ER”

I hit the ER and after a decent 30 minute wait, we were seen.

A lot of painful squeezing and pressing, some “special” soap and two staples into his skull WITHOUT any anaesthetic or numbing agents of any kind thankyouverymuch (because my kid is awesome); he was back to doing cartwheels, charming the nurses and doctors and showing off his Secret Agent Perry/Kung Fu Panda skills.

He has a bump the size of a big bouncy ball, two staples and I have blood trail through my house.  He is quite recovered and as his pre-k teacher put it: “by Tuesday, this will be a fighting an Alligator story” (boy does she know him)

Nathan and I…. we may take a day or two to recover.

The offending chair and the fireplace

The hallway

The Towel

At the ER

His head

The Staples

I’ll tell y’all this much.. these were NOT the first pictures that I expected to take with the lens of amazingness that I rented for his birthday weekend.