They can only stay babies for so long...

The kids got their hair cut today. It was Back Seat Boy's first ever haircut. He did not enjoy himself, but at least he sat still while he screamed, which is all I cared about. Here are a bunch of really crappy pictures I took after we got home. They are all of BSB except the first one, not because I'm playing favorites, but because I couldn't believe how much older he looks now. Also-very hard to take a picture of him because he was constantly crawling around playing with all of the toilet paper he dragged into the living room from the bathroom. Back Seat Girl fell and knocked it down. That's how things go around here.

BSG, looking down so I could take a picture of her hair

I had to lay down on the floor and then hold the camera up over us and hope I got some of his head in the shot.

Hey--did you know there was tons of this stuff in the bathroom?

Hello, Ladiez!

Thank God he doesn't have BSG's ears

All of this happened today and I didn't make any of it up. I swear.

As we were driving down the street in our fair city today I saw a woman walking down the sidewalk carrying a sweater-clad cat. If we end up moving out of Richfield I'm sure gonna' miss stuff like that.

This morning I was trying to get the kids dressed. Back Seat Girl does most of it herself, but it takes a looooooooooooooooooooooooong time for her to complete the transition from jammies to street clothes. She gets distracted by, oh, I don't know, everything. So she is in her room with Back Seat Boy and I'm in BSB's room getting clothes for him to wear when I hear both of them giggling. "Mom, come in here, BSB has a funny hat on!" BSG calls. Before I even poke my head in I know what I'm going to see, which is a scary fact in and of itself. Sure enough, BSB is sitting on BSG's rug with a pair of her underwear on his head, and they are both laughing.

I had a day off today which is rare, because Tuesdays are the one day of the week I am practically guaranteed to be at work. The reason has to do with the fact that yesterday was a federal holiday, and you can all go ahead and groan and roll your eyes, I don't care. Anyway, if you'll let me finish, that means the kids and I were home when the cleaning ladies got here. Before I proceed I just want to say I am a bit hesitant to write this because I know the cleaning ladies may occasionally read this website, and if they don't read this entry, I've heard one their daughters enjoys to read here so they will probably hear about this. I will also be calling them Cleaning Ladies for two reasons: 1--I hate to use people's real names without their consent, and 2--BSG called them that the whole time they were here, even after she learned their names. It's like she was meant to be brought up in a family with much, much more money. Man, don't you hate it when it takes forever for people to make a point?

OK, so the kids and I are at the table eating lunch and the Cleaning Ladies are in various parts of the house doing their thing when BSG announces: "The Cleaning Ladies have boobs". I had no idea if they had heard her or not, and if they did they chose to ignore it, but I said a fervent prayer that that would be the last time she talked about it while they were here. It was. Two SuperTargets and no more mention of boobs--God really does answer prayers.

One Year Old

updated:now with photos--finally!

One year old. I really don't know how this happened. I know I said it before, but I really am in a little bit of shock here. I promise this is the last comparison I make to your sister, but it seemed to take much longer for her to make it to a year. Now here you are, crawling around--a little person, so far removed from the baby in the picture up there.

You have always had a sweet disposition--happy and content, though now you are throwing age-appropriate tantrums. I say age appropriate because I took you to the Dr. yesterday and he asked if you were tantruming and I realized that yes, you are and when I said that he seemed almost pleased. You get mad when I take things away you shouldn't have, when I set you down when you want to be carried, when I don't set you down when you want to get down, when you wake up at 5 AM and realized that we aren't in your room to get you up but to try to get you to fall back asleep, and when you are sitting in your highchair and there is not food in front of you RIGHT. NOW. We switched your car seat to front facing yesterday and for the first time you threw a fit when I went to put you back in it after running errands. You straightened your little body out so I couldn't strap you in, crunched up your face, and grunted with rage.

This past week it's like you were completely aware that you knew you were about to turn one. You started waving bye-bye and crawling. You suddenly seemed so much older. I can't quite put my finger on it, but I noticed something was different. I know I'm not completely crazy, because Driver mentioned the same thing to me yesterday.

You have started holding your socks up to my nose after I take them off of you so I can smell them and say "P.U.--stinky!" You blow on your food the second you see anyone else at the table do it. You are mimicing everything we do--though your favorite thing to mimic is clapping. Tonight your sister and I were making tooting noises with our mouths while we were eating supper (oh, yea, we are that classy) and you thought it was hysterical. After you got done laughing your adorable little laugh, you tried making the same noises with your mouth. The problem was that all of your toot noises weren't quite 'toot' and more like blowing raspberries, but you still thought you were pretty awesome.

Your favorite thing to do is make noise. You love to bang things together, or bang objects against anything close to you--the floor, the wall, the refrigerator...whatever will make a nice, gratifying noise. You also love to take baths. You have no problem with getting a cup of water dumped over your head, and you have a great talent for bending over to try to take drinks from the bath water. Your favorite thing to do is to splash as hard as you can. You throw your whole body into it, and when water is dripping off of all of us and the walls you squeal with glee and do it over and over until I've had enough and pull you out of the bath to dry off.

You have this really annoying habit of trying to get out of peoples' arms when they are holding you. You wriggle and squirm and all but throw yourself forcibly down on the ground, but then when you do get set down you start to cry and turn around and hold your arms up to get picked up again. I really don't know what that's all about. Maybe once you get down you realize the floor wasn't as glorious as you once thought. I thought crawling would do away with this, but that is not the case.

I know I said before that this year has flown by, and it has, but I have a hard time remembering clearly what it was like before you were here. Before you were born the thing I was most apprehensive about was the changing of our family dynamic. We only had Back Seat Girl, and it was hard for me to think about a baby who wasn't her. Especially a boy baby. But then you were born and we fell in love with you and I can't remember what it was like to have just one baby. I can't imagine not having you in our lives, just like those nights when Driver was at school and Back Seat Girl was in bed and it was just me and my belly and my thoughts, and I had a hard time imagining what it would be like to bring another baby into the house. I can't believe how lucky I am that you were the baby in that big belly. I think about that all of the time, when we are out and people are admiring you, but especially when it's just you and me and I don't have to share you. I think about how lucky I am that out of all the people in this world, I get to be your mama, that God chose me to care for you and teach you and love you, you precious baby boy.

I love you so much.

Happy First Birthday, Little Man.

One year old- APlace Holder

Back Seat Boy-

I don't know how it happened, but today you turned one year old. In the past week you have weaned yourself, started crawling and waving bye-bye, and now this birthday on top of everything---I don't know if your old mom can handle it.

It's getting late and there's a lot to do before I go to bed, so I'm not going to have time to write you your birthday post today. It's really you're fault--you didn't take a very good afternoon nap. I didn't even have time to finish the Desperate Housewives I TiVo'd. Good thing it was your birthday, I had to forgive you right away. I guess the fact that you are so frickin' cute, your birthday, and the fact that you got a bazillion shots this morning all added up to you getting away with murder today. I would have almost let you eat all of your sister's pop beads.

Anyway, I hope you had a good birthday today (except for the part where we almost got in a car accident and ended up on the curb in the wagon inbetween a fire hydrant and a telephone pole), and I promise that soon, very soon, I will write you your birthday post, complete with pictures, and, if I can figure it out, a video.

I love you!!
MaMaMaMaMaMa