Our First Playdate!

Could this be more exciting?! Jack and I had our very first play date today and it was so much fun. We went over to Tracie Melton McRee's and Jack played with her 3 year old Corbin and Tracie and I had a good visit. Even if we did talk mostly about children and children related things, it was still soooooooo nice to carry on a conversation with an adult! YEA!! I am looking forward to getting more involved in the Southaven/Olive Branch community and meeting other Moms like me. Jack seemed to play pretty well with Corbin. He seemed to be ok with sharing and there was no hitting or biting so I am really happy! Corbin is a little older than Jack so it was a little hard for them to communicate but they still seemed to have a good time. Hopefully we will have more dates in the near future.

Toot Toot! Choo Choo!

So for those of you who know little Jack Henry well, certainly know about his love for trains, especially Thomas the Tank Engine. Jack has many Thomas toys but his three favorite Thomas toys are actually bath toys of the characters Thomas, Percy and Salty. All from the Thomas stories. We don't actually play with them in the tub we play with them out of the tub. Anyway, the other day Jack would run across the room and get a train, one at a time, and bring it back to me. I was lying on the couch on my side so he would place each train on my thigh and then run to get another train. After lining up all 3 trains on my not so skinny thigh, he proceeded to push on my leg in turn making the trains move, of course cause by the wave motion my thigh was making! So, the trains are moving, Jack is yelling, "Toot Toot! Choo Choo!", and my thigh is jiggling! How could this day get any better?

The Terrible 2's

I guess I didn't know how early the "terrible 2's" really started. It seems like Jack just woke up a few days ago and was smack dab in the middle of them. He used to never get all upset if he was told no. He would just kind of accept it, maybe with a little protest, and move on. But now, not so much. He has spent the most of today in a pretty bad mood. This, of course, is hard on everybody. Everyone gets frustrated with everyone else and we all just feed off of each others frustrations. I know that we all just need to take a deep breath and work things out as they come. I know everything will be fine. I love that little boy more than anything and it's pretty easy for me to get over the momentary frustration of his upset. Like my Mama says, all parents have to go through it and he is just learning.

Just when you think your child is soooo good.....

When people ask me about Jack, I always brag about how good he always is. He rarely acts up, especially in public. He usually only gets upset if he is tired, hungry or not feeling well. Then comes a day like today. WOW! Jack and I have both been trying to get over a lingering cold so we haven't been getting out a lot in the last week or so. Today, I decided to take him to Tuesday Morning for a little after holiday shopping. You know, the shopping trips you go on just to see if there is something you might like to buy for yourself since you spent the last 3+ months buying for everybody else. Anyway, Jack was fine for the first 10 minutes or so after walking through the doors. Then, all of a sudden he spotted a Thomas the Tank Engine toy. I knew then and there the attitude was about to change. It was all about "toot toot! toot toot! toot toot!" Oh boy! Well, I did what many of you might do. I said........ "No." I had already put about 3 toys in my cart and I was supposed to be shopping for me for once. Well, he went into a screaming, raging fit with tears and all. I have never had to deal with this in public a day in my life. It was a little unnerving. So I handled it pretty well I think. I just talked to him as calmly as possible and we proceeded to the checkout to pay for what we had and move on. He did stop crying about 3 or 4 minutes later. At least it didn't last very long. Little did I know the "best" was yet to come.

On our way home he was acting ok so I decided we would try to stop at Books-A-Million to see if I could find a good Toddler Cookbook and let him hang out in the little kids section. You know, where they have the little table and chairs and children's books. Anyway, I decided to just carry him in since I had planned on letting him down to play a little. It took about 2 seconds for him to spot a book in the shape of a truck with wheels on it. I put him down and handed him the book. He took off running and there I was running after him. After catching him and attempting to pick him up, he, of course, threw himself on the floor in a screaming, raging tantrum in turn kicking the "truck book" in the middle of the main aisle. People stared and tried to act like it was ok but to be quite honest, I was pretty embarrassed. This wasn't a playground, it was a book store. A place of silence and relaxation right? Not today! Not at 2:00 pm. If you were there, sorry!

So that is the story of Jack's first public disturbance. Let's hope it doesn't happen again. HA HA!! Yeah right. But we love them anyway.

From the beginning

So, I guess I feel like I should tell you where I am now with my life. Not necessarily the trip here but what my life consists of at this point. My husband, Mike, and I have been married for 9 years in February. Our little family became whole when our son Jack Henry Smith was born on June 7, 2006. We tried for almost 4 years to get pregnant and FINALLY it happened. I know there are couples who have tried for so much longer to have a child so we feel truly blessed that it only took us as long as it did. My sister, Salley, and I are both adopted so the thought of having to adopt to have children was absolutely fine with me. I admit, I REALLY wanted to go through the whole pregnancy experience but I was ok with the idea of not being able to. So we live in Southaven, MS now and after 1 year of living here we are finally beginning to settle in. Amazing how long that takes especially when you have a child. Jack was only 7 months old when we moved here so things stayed a little hectic at first. Not that things have really slowed down at all. Jack is 19 months old and constantly on the go like any 19 month old. Mike works from home and I am a stay at home mom so we see each other ALL DAY! The only other married couple I know of that is together all day is my parents and they have been married for, gosh, 43 years almost. My dad is an attorney, private practice, and my mother is his office manager/administrative assistant. I don't know how they do it. Mike and I just have to really stick to our "rules" of basically doing our jobs and staying away from the other as much as possible. It was hard at first to not ask him for any help with Jack. Like, when I needed to run out to the store and didn't want to load up Jack for a 5 minute trip. Still, I had to remember that Mike was "at work" and not "at home". See, gets a little tough. Anyway, we manage. Things can get a little crazy around here though. I am sure you can understand that.