It's the little things...

                As I previously mentioned, part of the purpose of this blog is to keep track of the cute little things my kids do from day to day. I am ashamed to say I have yet to write a single word in Liam's baby book, and Raleigh doesn't even have one! *Hangs head in shame.* I've always believed that I'd remember all the cute little milestones and quirky things they do without writing them down, but in case you didn't already know, let me be the first to tell you, THIS DOESN'T WORK! Sometimes I forget things by the end of the very day they happened. For instance, Liam will do some random cute little move or have a funny reaction to something, and I make a mental note to tell Keegan about it when he gets home from work....yeah...that never works so well. I have about 50,000 mental post-it notes floating around in my head as if a gust of wind just blew them off my mental clipboard. The faster I chase them down, the further away the wind blows them. (Then I just look like an idiot running around through the parking lot chasing post-it notes.) Did you get that mental picture? It's not cute at all, I feel bad for losing the notes and no one will ever know what they said! Now this blog can serve as my giant virtual post-it note. I'm going to try to record things the kids did that day that amused me, charmed me, made me laugh, made me cry, made me want to pull my hair out, (hey, when they get older I gotta save some stuff to hold over their heads.)
     
                I feel like I should warn you, when it comes time for me to share these types of stories, I'm sure they will be far less amusing & cute to you random readers. After all, they are my children and I think everything most things they do are precious anyways. I'm probably always going to want to brag on them and dote on them and insist that no child will ever be as cute/precocious/smart as my own. This being said, I know all of you will more than likely feel that way about your own children, and you may find yourself rolling your eyes when I post things that seem super lame to you. Just keep in mind though, that one day you will find yourself going on about that less-than spectacular-but nevertheless-cute thing your kid did, and you too will realize you're guilty of looking through your "mom lenses." I, for one, wear my mom lenses proudly and will always be willing to tell you all the good things about my kids, you just have to ask. :D (I'm also willing to share with you about the moments when my mom lenses are crooked and I want to ship my kids to Timbuktu, but I think yesterdays post covered that pretty well.)

              Well, on to my cute Liam moment of the day....I already am feeling a bit guilty recording this little gem, as I am realizing it is the first little quirky thing he's done that I've ever written down and he's TWO! Oh well, all I can do is move forward from here.

             Yesterday at some point bewteen morning and naptime, Liam, Raleigh, and I headed upstairs to put away some clothes in the bedrooms. I laid Raleigh down in her bassinet in our room, (more on that later,) and Liam and I went in her room to hang some things up. Well we got a bit distracted and instead it turned into a super cute and fun game of "putting mommy to bed." We have a twin bed with a trundle that we are keeping in Raleigh's room so that when company comes we always have an extra sleeping surface in addition to the couch. I'm pretty sure there aren't many things more enticing to a two year old than a nicely made up bed for jumping on. So, you can guess what Liam was doing. He stopped jumping and laid himself out on the bed, head on the pillow, and squeezed his eyes shut really tight, so I played along. "Okay, if you're going to sleep, I'm going bye-bye!" and I pretended to leave and shut the door. He jumped up out of the bed and then turned around and patted the pillow saying "Mama!" (He wanted me to lay down.) So I laid down in the bed and said something along the lines of "Okay mama's going to sleep!" He burst into fits of uncontrollable laughter and ran to the door, saying "bah bah" (bye bye) as he left. I called out "WAIT! You need to tuck me in!" So he bursts into laughter again and runs back to the bed and pulls the blanket up over me. Of course I'm being super dramatic, (what else is new?) and I snuggle all down and mumble about it being cozy etc. Liam once again bursts into laughter and heads for the door saying "Bah bah!" Just when he had the door almost closed I yelled, "WAIT! You didn't kiss me goodnight!" So he runs back over to me, and gives me a big goodnight kiss in between the giggle fits. I go on about how I can finally fall to sleep now that I have my kiss, and he heads for the door telling me bye bye, and just when he's about to close it, he pauses. At this point he knows I'm going to ask for something else, so I yell, "WAIT! You didn't read me a story!" He was ready and waiting for it this time, so he burst into his fit of laughter right on cue since he had been anticipating it. (Kids anticipating laughter like that is the best!!!) So anyways he disappears into the hall and comes back a moment later with a book from his bedroom and brings it to me in the bed laughing. This went on for a few more minutes. He was absolutely hysterical over the idea of putting his mom to bed, and I'm sure the drama I added in was enough to send even a Buckingham Palace guard into hysterics, (mainly because I look like a total idiot.) This game lasted for a total of about 5 minutes until all at once Liam was no longer amused by it and we moved on with our day. Like I said, that was probably boring to most other people, but it's these little fun moments with my toddler that make my day so much fun. I may be stressed, but it's not without tons of laughter and fun right along with it.

                 There...it feels good to have recorded that. It's like a sigh of relief. I know as soon as I hit "publish" this little memory of mine will be forever cataloged somewhere where I can always reflect on it. (Or until the internet crashes.) If I had only known how good this had felt I would've started a long time ago! If you have kids and you're reading, I encourage to to write down the little things! Of course it's fun to remember their first tooth and the day they crawled, etc. But I know when I look back on my life, I'd rather remember the fun moments, the 30 seconds you caught them doing something super sweet or mischevious, the giggles over nonsense, & the things they only do when they're two and have no inhibitions. These are the things I want to remember. I hope I can continue to remember things like this and remember to write them down. One day it would be really fun to create a book of the fun moments. <3

                   Oh and about Raleigh in her bassinet....she was really tired when I put her in there. In fact I had expected to lay her down just for her to start crying as soon as I did, and I knew as soon as I put the clothes away I was going to have to put her to sleep. She's still totally dependent on being "put" to sleep, she's not much of a 'fall asleep drowsy' kind of baby. So when we headed to her room to put clothes away I was shocked to hear her just happily cooing at herself. Liam and I played for a while in her room and then in his room and I could still hear her talking to herself in our room. I'm a firm believer in the phrase, "If it aint broke, don't fix it." So I just kept waiting to see when she'd summon for me. Then all of the sudden I realized it was quiet in our room. With a toddler, silence is almost NEVER a good thing, so my first instinct is to be nervous... but upon entering my bedroom, I found her sound asleep in her bassinet. What a sweet sight! Not only did she look absolutely precious, but this is such a good step towards better sleep habits! She is used to being swaddled for sleeping, and I'm trying to wean her from that, so I was so pleased to see that she had fallen asleep completely free armed and on her own. Of course it was picture worthy so I trudged downstairs to retrieve my camera and came back to get a few shots. I really thought this cool moment was going to be short lived, but Liam and I headed downstairs anyways. We went out in the front yard for a while so I could hang up some fall decorations. About 45 minutes later when I was putting Liam down for his nap, Raleigh woke up. (My kids have a secret alliance in which their goal is to never both be sleeping at the same time.) Anyways, it was a cool little moment for her me that day. I hope it's the first of many more just like it! Here's a picture of Raleigh sleeping like a champ!

I hope you all enjoyed this and only had to roll your eyes at me once or twice.